2q8 Mrarns om f/ie B/rc/s of An'zoua. [J"'y 



height by 300 mm. in width ; the internal depth, 45 mm. ; inter- 

 nal diameter, 90 mm. The two eggs are uniform bluish-green, 

 darker and greener than specimens that ha\ e been in ni}' cabinet 

 nearly two years, which have faded to a bluish tint resembling a 

 Robin's egg. Thinking that the green color might be measurably 

 due to the yellow yolk contained, I emptied one shell of its con- 

 tents, after which it appeared to be even clearer greenish than 

 before. The eggs measure 30 X 20 and 29X20 mm. respectively. 



Crissal Thrashers inhabit by preference bushy places in the 

 vicinity of water courses in the lower valleys, but range upward 

 upon the oak-clad foothills to an altitude of 5000 feet, or in 

 autumn occasionally even a little higher. The Verde Valley 

 here has an altitude of 3,500 feet, and a much warmer climate 

 than the bordering mesas and foothills, which in winter are often 

 deeply covered with snow. Although they may be occasionally 

 met with in the snow belt, most of them descend into the warmer 

 valleys in severely cold weather. I have seen numbers of them 

 feeding upon the bare sand upon the edge of the Verde River 

 after a snowstorm. Making proper allowance for their being 

 more conspicuous in winter on account of the absence of foliage, 

 the species is undoubtedly far more plentiful in the Verde Valley 

 during the winter season than in summer, when many of those 

 which winter here move upward into the zone of scrub oaks, in 

 which they breed in abundance wherever they can find water 

 within a convenient distance. The exodus takes place about the 

 end of February, after which the species becomes comparatively 

 scarce ; and by the middle of March nearly all of those remain- 

 ing are settled and occupied with domestic aflairs. In the sur- 

 rounding highlands it breeds late in the spring. Nests were found 

 upon the banks of Big Bug and Ash Creeks, at an elevation of 

 nearly 5,000 feet, which contained fresh eggs as late as the mid- 

 dle of May. Some were built in oak bushes, and one conspicu- 

 ously located in a swinging grape-vine six feet above the ground. 



The Red-vented Thrasher is omnivorous. It feeds largely 

 upon berries and wild grapes. A thorny species of 'haw' is 

 plentiful along the Rio Verde, which bears an abundance of 

 berries, of green, red, and dark glaucous-blue colors, according to 

 the degree of maturity ; upon these the Thrashers delight to 

 feed. Insects constitute an important article of their diet at all 

 seasons. 



