WITH BROWN PREDOMINATING 275 
chestnut ; malar stripe white, with dusky streak under same on each 
side of throat. 
Young: Similar to adults, but more rusty on upper parts, especially on 
rump and tips of tail-feathers; lower parts more fulvous. 
Geographical Distribution: Southern California and Northern Lower 
California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, east to Western Texas. 
California Breeding Range: Locally in desert regions along lower Colo- 
rado River, from Fort Yuma, northwest to Palm Springs. 
Breeding Season: February to July. 
Nest: Large and conspicuous ; made of coarse twigs ; lined with strips 
of plant bark ; placed in bushes. 
Liggs: 3 or 4; pale greenish blue. Size 1.08 x 0.75. 
Look for the Crissal Thrasher in the low, bushy un- 
derbrush of the valleys where a clear brook winds its 
way or a pond hides in a fringe of alders. Rarely will 
you find him nesting at any great distance from water, 
and one of the first lessons he gives his brood is to take 
a morning splash. It is well worth while rising at four 
A. M. to see him plunge so eagerly into the cold water and 
splash it in a shower of sparkling drops. The bath over, 
he flies up to the top of a tall bush to preen his wet 
feathers and fill the air with melody. His song is un- 
like that of any other thrasher in its smoothness of exe- 
cution and richness of tone. Every note is sweet, true, 
and perfect, but the whole lacks the spasmodic brillianey 
we are accustomed to expect in his family. It has a 
more spiritual quality but less dash. From February 
until late in April this Thrasher sings his sweetest, for 
then is his springtime of love and joy. From that time 
on through July, when the second brood is fledged, he 
sings less enthusiastically, and soon he ceases altogether. 
Late in the autumn he sometimes is heard again in the 
valleys, but the full sweetness is withheld until the 
mating season comes again, in February. 
