CAXl'ON BROWN TOWHEE 627 



seem as frequent as in the Abert's towhoc. In winter-taken stomachs, 

 in addition to a great variety of seeds, there are little colorful crystals 

 the birds pick up daily to help grind the seeds in the stomach. 



During the nesting season parents gather insects by the beakful 

 for their young. Both parents have been seen to feed young out of 

 the nest, each parent apparently providing for a certain offspring. 

 In one family, the male seemed not to be gathering food. Instead, 

 he sang while the female was out of sight, then carefully supervised 

 her approach to feed the stationary young out of the nest by dupUcating 

 her path higher up. 



Behavior. — The canyon towhee is normally one of the shyest bu'ds 

 of southern Arizona. A few fortunate persons who live in foothill 

 homes where natural vegetation of saguaro and palo verde is pre- 

 served have birds about their yards, visiting their drinking or feeding 

 stations, which become fairly tame. So are those that live about 

 Indian homes and dooryards in rural Mexico. But in wild country 

 the birds, though known to be present, can avoid being seen from 

 dawn until dusk. In fall and early winter, when they call least 

 often they may utter the caU-note only five or six times at dawn, 

 and perhaps a few more times in succession at dusk. During the 

 rest of the day they may have only three or four other periods of 

 brief calling, or of squealing in the case of a pair. In winter the 

 towhee calls as much while going to roost as it does during the rest 

 of the day. In the gloom of dusk it will ascend to a post to call for 

 a few minutes before flying to a dense bush to roost 4 to 8 feet off 

 the ground. 



The canyon towhee especially likes to feed under things — under 

 bushes, log fences, old buildings, and chicken-houses. Lew Blatchley 

 reports that at Silver City, N. Mex., a favorite resort for the canyon 

 towhees is under his parked car. At Tucson they have been seen 

 feeding under trailers, under wagons on the farm, under dense patches 

 of tumbleweeds, under mesquites, and within tall grasses. 



When it feeds in the open, the canyon towhee always stays within 

 a few feet of dense bushes, to which it retreats even when other kinds 

 of birds of lesser size fly by or alight, as at a feeder. Also the towhee 

 keeps on the move, no matter how abundant the food at a particular 

 spot. It may scratch in one place for five minutes or more, but usually 

 it samples the feeder's offering, runs back into the bushes, and moves 

 on, 



C. F. Batch elder (1885) encountered the canyon towhee at Las 

 Vegas Hot Springs, N. Mex., in December 1882. He had this to say 

 of the behavior of this race : 



In the willows along the river bank the Cafion Towhees (Pipilo fuscus mesoleu- 

 cus) were sometimes to be seen, though they frequented other places as well. 



