34 Brown's Reconnoissance in Soiithxvestern Texas. 



westerly from New Braunfels, where Messrs. Werner and Rick- 

 secker made their collection, a few years ago.* It lies in a coun- 

 tiy of hills and "'flats," scantily watered and largely unproduc- 

 tive, be3'ond which timber and general vegetation rapidly dis- 

 appear, as the westward-bound traveller nears the desolation of 

 the Great Plains. Live-oak grows in scattering groves, the post- 

 oak in more compact clusters, and cedar occurs in small "brakes " 

 of some density. There are also, along the creek to which the 

 village owes its existence, two or three small oases of deciduous 

 trees admixed with vines, no one of them, perhaps, an acre in 

 extent. The mesquite, which is so common on the prairies to 

 the south and east, is not seen, but is replaced by a small variety 

 of live-oak growing in the form of chapari-al. Throughout my 

 stay in it, the country had a very inhospitable and dreary aspect, 

 on account of the almost total lack of grass of any kind ; and by 

 its absence the number of the local birds is of course materially 

 diminished. 



In presenting a list of the birds observed in this locality, I 

 wish to call especial attention to the curious admixture of geo- 

 graphical races found here. Among the species which are sub- 

 ject to climatic variation, severalare represented- by two distinct 

 varieties and with them confused and indeterminable intermediate 

 forms. In others but one constant form is found. And in a third 

 class the bird occurs in a varying, transitional phase of plumage 

 which, however, occasionally becomes typical of some described 

 race. 



1. Hylocichla unalascae (Gm.) Ridg. Dwarf Thrush. — Uncom- 

 mon resident. Not heard to sing. Several of my specimens very closely 

 approach the variety audnboni. I saw nothing of the eastern pallasi, 

 which I have i-eceived from Mr. Geo. H. Ragsdale, of Gainesville. 



2. Merula migratoria propinqua, Ridg. Western Robin. — Irreg- 

 ularly abundant. 



3. Mimus polyglottus (Liuii.) Boic. Mockingbird. — Rare resi- 

 dent. 



4. Sialia sialis (Z,/;/;/.) Haldcm. Bluebird. — -Comparatively com- 

 mon during the winter. All of my specimens were in most beautiful 

 plumage. Not one male in a dozen showed the slightest brownish edging 

 to the feathers of the back. I was particularly struck with this in view of 

 the fact that almost every individual in a large series collected in Alabama, 

 in the winter of 1878, exhibited more or less of this brownish edging. 



*See Brewster, this Bull., Vol. IV, pp. 75-80 and 91-103. 



