° 191 1 J Kennedy, Fruit-eating Habits of the Sage Thrasher. 225 



Turkeys come, the old man Lee who kept tame turkeys told us 

 of an amusing experience he had had the previous night. He had 

 gone up the guleh hack of his house and while there had seen an 

 old gobbler, and thought he'd drive him home. But when ap- 

 proached the turkey ran away from home — and when chased got 

 up and flew! Surprised at this strange behaviour the old man 

 went on down to the ranch. Passing his hen house he looked in 

 and — there was his gobbler inside ! Perhaps the turkey he had 

 chased was one whose tracks we had seen on Willow Creek! 



NOTES OX THE FRUIT-EATING HABITS OF THE SAGE 

 THRASHER IN THE YAKIMA VALLLEY. 



BY CLARENCE HAMILTON KENNEDY. 



The broad sage-covered stretches of the lower Yakima Valley, 

 with the barren hills enclosing it, lie in the Transition and Upper 

 Sonoran Zones. Only a narrow strip a few miles wide down the 

 center of the valley has been reclaimed by irrigation and the brown 

 desert displaced by green fields and orchards. 



It is in this sage brush land above the irrigated area that the 

 Sage Thrashers {Orcoscoptcs montanus), after arriving in the 

 spring, nest and live until the young are capable of extended flight. 

 During the nesting period they are the best singers of any of the 

 sage brush inhabitants. They are also the most wary, for seldom 

 can a person on foot approach one nearer than fifty yards. 



During the latter half of May, families of Sage Thrashers drift 

 down into the irrigated ranches and begin their season of fruit- 

 eating with the black-cap raspberries, which are then beginning 

 to ripen. By this time the young, though still associating with the 

 older birds, are capable of searching out their own food. With 

 this independence of the young, the habits of the Sage Thrashers 

 change very markedly. After this the snatches of whimsical song 

 are rarelv heard. From birds with a burst of song after every 



