::::::::»x TWO BIRD -LOVERS IN MEXICO sfe."""- 



Northern Chewiiik in actions. Plpilo fuscus brought 

 us nearer to its sjDecial name, but not until later did we 

 learn that its common name was a literal translation — 

 Brown Towhee. While we were in Mexico, it was to 

 us '"'' Pqnlo fuscus,''' which slipped behind the cactus 

 screen or skimmed up and over the adobe walls — more 

 mouse than bird. 



A closely related but much handsomer bird was the 

 Green-tailed Towhee, not a Plpilo despite his name, 

 but intermediate structurally between the true towhees 

 and the group of White-throated Sparrows. It cer- 

 tainly reminded one of both groups. Like the Brown 

 Towhee it kept to the weed tangles of the ditches where 

 it was easily watched as it fed on the small seeds and 

 the lesser grasshoppers. It is strikingly marked with 

 a rufous, almost red cap, and a white throat, grayish 

 green above and l)righter green on the wings and tail. 

 A mewing note, like that of a Red-eyed Vireo, was the 

 most common utterance of this bird. 



Day after day tiny green-garbed warblers traversed 

 the ditches, confidingly seeking their diet of smallest 

 insects, within a few feet of us. What could they be ? 

 W^e puzzled and puzzled over them in vain. At last 

 I secured one and we made sure of the identification, 

 — scientifically, Helminthophila celata lutes cens {^idg- 

 way) ; commonly, the Lutescent Warbler. To my mind 

 a bird in the bush is w^orth a whole flock in the skin 

 drawer, but the characters of modern classification 



«4 52 ^ 



