iSS6.] Batchelder, North Carolina Mountains in Winter. 307 



grasses and weeds, the inner nest resting upon a mass of large 

 sticks, loosely placed. Tlie nest-lining was of grass and a few 

 feathers. In shape the eggs are an elongated oval, tapering to a 

 point at the small end, instead of being rather rounded and obtuse 

 as in H. palmeri. Their grovuid-color is greenish-blue, somewhat 

 deeper than in the e.^'g of Palmer's Tluasher. One has large 

 blotches of yellowish-brown and lavender sparingly scattered 

 over the ^^%-, a few extending nearly to the small extremity. In 

 the others the marks are of the same colors, but reduced to fine 

 spots, quite numerous, and confluent near the great end, but 

 scarcely extending to the opposite extremity at all. 



Leconte's Thrasher was seen at several points between Casa 

 Grande and Phoenix during May, and was still singing. Upon 

 the desert a few miles north of Phcenix I took a mated pair, on 

 the 14th, in very nearly the same locality at which Mr. Stephens 

 captured the fifth known specimen, in 18S0. At this place, for 

 the first and only time, I found all four of the Arizona Thrashers 

 together. 



[ To be continued^ 



THE NORTH CAROLINA MOUNTAINS IN WINTER. 



BY CHARLES F. BATCHELDER. 



« 



Although of late years ornithologists have been ransacking 

 nearly every accessible corner of this continent, they have, 

 strangely enough, neglected the mountain region of the Southern 

 AUeghanies. There seems to have been au impression that the 

 birds of the Atlantic States were so well known that it would be 

 idle to look for important discoveries there, where the fathers of 

 our science had done their work, so the tide has been setting to 

 the newer regions of the West. In truth, the earlier ornitholo- 

 gists were necessarily far from thorough in their explorations, 

 and there have remained some corners of the field in which they 

 worked where there is yet much to be gleaned. Such is the case 

 with our southern mountains. Magazine writers have enlarged 

 upon the beauties of their scenery, geologists and botanists have 

 visited them, and have brought to light many interesting discov- 



