128 Sketches of Some Common Birds. 



summit of the tallest tree in his domains, and dispenses to 

 his neighbors generous measures of real though monot- 

 onous melody. 



Dr. Coues gives the habitat of the towhee as eastern 

 United States and British Provinces; north to Canada, 

 Minnesota, and Dakota; west to Kansas; and in the Mis- 

 souri River region to about the forty-third parallel. 

 Northerly perfectly migratory ; wintering from middle 

 United States southward; and breeding nearly through- 

 out its range. Eobert Eidgway states that the species is 

 resident south of the fortieth parallel. In my home 

 neighborhood, which is open prairie in about thirty-nine 

 degrees and twenty minutes north, it is a regular migrant, 

 local influences doubtless being unfavorable to its per- 

 manent residence. 



The towhee reaches our neighborhood in its northward 

 migrations on widely varying dates. I first identified it 

 in 1881, April 29th, and it doubtless had then been in the 

 vicinity some days before I observed it. In 1882 I saw 

 the first towhee of the season on February 12th, when it 

 was hopping in and about an evergreen tree in town. It 

 was April 28th when 1 observed the earliest towhee for 

 1883 in the woods, and March 18th brought the first 

 migrant for 1884. 



Like the rose-breasted grosbeak, the towhee is not seen 

 long on the wing, nor does it make lofty flights. In as- 

 cending high trees, it alights among the lower branches, 

 and leisurely climbs by a series of irregular hops and 

 flights, as fancy leads it. Its migrations are made along 

 hedgerows, bushy fences, and through patches of briers and 

 undergrowth. From its earliest arrival in the spring it 

 haunts heaps of dried brush, away from the vicinity of 

 dwellings, and frequents the underbrush of dry woods- 

 pastures, where its scratching among the dead leaves and 

 branches will surely reveal its presence, if its character- 

 istic " chwink " is unheard. In its habit of scratching 

 among the dead leaves, it has a close parallel in the fox 

 sparrow, whose efforts in this line are quite ludicrous, 

 though less noisy than the movements of the towhee. 



On any of our rambles through the woods where there 

 is undergrowth of gooseberry, blackberry, and other 



