420 rs THE SAGE THRASHER. 
No. 123. 
SAGE THRASHER. 
A. O. U. No. 702. Oroscoptes montanus Townsend. 
Synonyms.—Sace Mocker. Mountarn Mockinc-pirp (early name— 
inapropos ). 
Description Adults: General plumage ashy brown, lighter below; above 
grayish- or ashy-brown, the feathers, especially on crown, streaked mesially with 
darker brown; wings and tail dark grayish brown with paler edgings; middle 
and greater coverts narrowly tipped with whitish, producing two dull bars; outer 
rectrices broadly tipped with white, decreasing in area, till vanishing on central 
pair; lores grayish; a pale superciliary line; cheeks brownish varied by white; 
underparts whitish tinged with buffy brown, most strongly on flanks and crissum, 
everywhere (save, usually, on throat, lower belly, and under tail-coverts) streaked 
with dusky, the streaks tending to confluence along side of throat, sharply dis- 
tinguished and wedge-shaped on breast, where also heaviest; bill blackish paling 
on mandible; legs and feet dusky brownish, the latter with yellow soles; iris 
lemon-yellow. Young birds are browner and more decidedly streaked above; 
less distinctly streaked below. Length about 8.00 (203); wing 3.82 (97); tail 
3.54 (90) ; bill .65 (16.4) ; tarsus 1.20 (30.5). 
Recognition Marks.—Chewink size; ashy-brown plumage appearing nearly 
uniform at distance; sage-haunting habits; impetuous song. 
Nesting.—Nest, a substantial structure of thorny twigs (Sarcobatus pre- 
ferred), usually slightly domed, with a heavy inner cup of fine bark (sage) 
strips, placed without attempt at concealment in sage-bush or greasewood. Eggs, 
4 or 5, rich, dark, bluish green, heavily spotted or blotched with rich rufous and 
“ego-oray’’—among the handsomest. Ay. size, .98x.71 (24.9x18). Season: 
May 1-June 15; two (?) broods. 
General Range.—VWestern United States from western part of the Great 
Plains (western South Dakota, western Nebraska, and eastern Colorado) north 
to Montana, west to the Cascades and Sierra Nevada, south into New Mexico, 
Lower California, and, casually, to Guadalupe Island. 
Range in Washington.—T'reeless portions of East-side; summer resident. 
Authorities.—|‘Sage Thrasher,’ Johnson, Rep. Goy. W. T. 1884 (1885), 
p- 22.] Dawson, Wilson Bulletin, No. 39, June, 1902, p. 67. (T). D2. Ss. Ss? 
Specimens.—U. of W. P. C. 
IT takes a poet to appreciate the desert. Those people who affect to 
despise the sage are the same to whom stones are stones instead of compacted 
histories of the world’s youth, and clouds are clouds instead of legions of 
angels. It is no mark of genius then to despise common things. ‘The desert 
has cradled more of the world’s good men and great than ever were coddled 
in king’s palaces. Whistler used to paint “symphonies in gray” and men held | 
back questioning, ‘““Er—is this art?’ A few, bolder than their fellows, pro- 
