l&l-i] fir'niniU: Mammnh and Birds of the Colorado Valley ]77 



Pipilo maculatus curtatus Grinnell 

 Nevada Towhee 



Occurred in the river bottom only, and even there not in large 

 numbers. One was seen on the California side near Needles, February 

 17. and another was taken on the same side five miles below Needles, 

 February 20. One was secured and others heard on the California 

 side of the river in the lower Chemehuevis Valley. March 9. One 

 was heard on the Arizona side at Parker. ^larch 15. And individuals 

 were heard, and one finally secured, March 17, on the California side 

 near Riverside Mountain. In nearly all cases the birds kept close to 

 the arrowweed and quail-briLsh associations, from within which it was 

 difficult to .see them or drive them out, thoufrh they were readily 

 heard. 



As none was seen after ^March 29. when two were routed out of 

 an arrowweed thicket near Ehrenberg. this bird is doubtless to be 

 considered only a winter visitant to the region. Careful examination 

 of the three specimens obtained (nos. 13337-13339) showed them to 

 be unlike the P. m. montanus re.sident in the mountains to the eastward 

 in Arizona, and yet quite different from the P. m. megalonijx resident 

 in the southern Sierran and San Diegan districts of California. Ca.st- 

 ing about for comparable .specimens disclosed the fact that Colorado 

 River birds were practicall.v identical with examples representinsr a 

 previously unnamed form, inhabiting in .summer portions of the Great 

 Basin region at least of northern Nevada, eastern Oregon and north- 

 eastern California. The Colorado Valley birds were thus evidently 

 winter visitants from this region and not from any nearer locality, as 

 far as known (see Grinnell. 1911. p. 309). 



Pipilo aberti Baird 



Abert Towhee 



Abundant resident of the riparian .strip along both .sides of the 

 river with scarcely a break the whole way from Needles to the Mexican 

 line. Of the four recognized riparian associations — willow, arrow- 

 weed, quail-brash and mesquite — the latter two were the ones for 

 which preference was most often .shown. Although foraging a few 

 .vards outwardly from the mesquite belt, in no instance were these 

 birds found to have followed up the desert washes away from the 



