SAN FRANCISCO BROWN TOWHEE 613 



pair when they met and in no instance did the two fight. Moreover, in approxi- 

 mately one hundred clashes or boundary disputes between birds of different pairs, 

 no mate-call was given * * *. 



Outside of the nesting season tlie mate-calls are given less often. Before 

 meeting in the morning, the members of a pair may forage separately for awhile; 

 when they meet, the mate-call is given * * *. Generally speaking, the mated 

 birds forage together in the winter months and since the meetings are relatively 

 fewer, the mate-call is given less. 



It is difficult to tell which sex gives the mate-call. Sometimes it appears that 

 onlj' one of the birds gives the call, but more often it seems to be a duet. 



Of particular interest is the brown towhee's only reaDy musical 

 attempt at song, which appeal's to function chiefly in attractmg 

 females to unattached males. As all birds singing it that have been 

 collected have been males, it is apparently a male trait. Its prevalence 

 from late January into June suggests that the sex ratio is often 

 unbalanced in favor of the male. 



This song is an elaboration of the basic chip or tsip note repeated 

 three or four times in succession and followed by a rapid, sometimes 

 descending series of notes almost trill-like in quality. R. Hunt (1922) 

 confines the rhythm of this song to that of a golf ball dropped on a 

 hard sm'face and allowed to bounce until it stops. The trill-like 

 ending may vaiy considerably from a linnetlike trill to the bubbling 

 of a winter wren, and at times may be omitted entirely. This finch- 

 hke warble appeai-s to be a retention of an ancestral song which is 

 gradually being lost. As the brown towhce lives where members of a 

 pair can almost always see each other and their neighbors, such 

 elaborate advertising as in the song sparrow or mockingbird is not 

 necessary. 



The note of the young in the nest calling for food is a pvhlee, 

 reminescent of the call of the rufous-sided towhee. The fledgling's 

 hunger note is similar to that of most sparrows, a loud ist, tst, tst. 

 As the young bird becomes more active it gives a faint tssp. 



In territorial clashes between neighbors or wandering intruders 

 and when driving juveniles from their natal territory, a throaty tschuck 

 note is repeated rapidly during flight. There can be no mistaking 

 the peculiar quality of this note or the intent of the bird making it. 

 It means: "Get out and stay out." 



In rare instances the males utter a whispered finchlike warble not 

 unlike the song of the house finch, but so faint it cannot be heard more 

 than a few feet away. A. H. Miller (MS.) heard it from a male fighting 

 his reflection in a window, and another time from a paired male hidden in 

 the foliage of a tree. Several times I have heard a male give this song 

 near the nest when the incubating female had left it to feed. From 

 the variety of situations in which it is used, and the fact that it is 

 inaudible at a distance of over 10 feet, the function of this song is not 



