NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 327 



590. Pipilo cMorurus (Towns.) [239.] 



Green-tailed To-whee. 



Hab. Whole of Middle Province, including the Rocky Mountains and eastern slope of the Sierra 

 Nevada — Eastern Oregon, Idaho, Montana, etc., south into Mexico. 



Called the Chestnut-crowned Towhee, Green-tailed Bunting 

 and Blanding's Finch. It is generally distributed in all bushy places 

 throughout the fertile mountain portions of the interior. It is a char- 

 acteristic bird of the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, and a 

 summer resident arriving at Virginia City about the middle or latter 

 part of April. Habits, nesting, eggs and song generic. The late Mr. 

 Snowdon Howland informed me that he collected a set of four eggs of 

 this species in Wyoming, in 1871. The nest was placed on the ground 

 in the usual manner of that of the Eastern Towhee, and was composed 

 of dry grasses and shreds of bark. It was well concealed by a dense 

 growth of low bushes. 



The eggs are white with a bluish tint, profusely dotted with 

 pinkish-drab, sometimes so thickly distributed as to give the egg 

 the appearance of a uniform color, or as an unspotted pinkish- 

 drab, and again more sparsely diffused ; nearly oval in shape ; four 

 eggs is the usual complement; the sizes of a set of five eggs in Mr. 

 Norris' cabinet, taken May 28, near Fort Klamath, Oregon, are .85 x .64, 

 .90 X .68, .85 X .65, .90 X .68, .84 X .64 ; their average size is .85 x.65. 



591. Pipilo fuscus mesoleucus (Baird) [240.] 



Canon To'whee. 



Hab. New Mexico and Arizona, south into Mexico. 



The Canon Bunting or Brown Towhee is abundantly distributed 

 throughout the warmer portions of New Mexico and Arizona, from the 

 valley of the Rio Grande to that of the Colorado. It prefers the dense 

 bushes of the valleys, and like the Eastern Red-eye, passes the greater 

 part of its time on the ground, in thickets, generally in company with 

 the Arctic Towhee. The nest is usually built in shrubs and low mes- 

 quite trees. 



A set of three eggs of this species in Mr. Norris' cabinet was 

 collected July 14, 1882, by Captain Charles E. Bendire, near Rilletto 

 Creek, Arizona. The nest was placed in a mesquite bush about four 

 feet from the ground. The eggs are white, spotted, principally at the 

 larger ends, with black and vandyke brown. There are also a few 

 spots of lavender-gray, and quite a number of the curious pen lines 

 common to the eggs of the oriole. They measure .90X.71, .89X.66, 

 .94X.71. 



