The White-Eyed Towhee 



(THE FLORIDA TOWHEE. Pipilo erythrophthalmus alleni) 

 By Arthur T. Wayne 



THE local name of this bird on the coast of South Carolina is the Bull 

 Finch, and I have known it by that name ever since I was a boy. The 

 White-eyed Towhee is a permanent resident, being non-migratory, and it 

 breeds in the same woods year after year, placing its nest almost invariably 

 in low bushes from two to four feet above the ground, but in two instances 

 I have actually found the nest upon the ground. 



Full complements of eggs are usually to be obtained between May 10 

 and 12, but on April 14, 1903, I discovered young birds nearly fledged that 

 were being fed by their parents. The season of 1903, was remarkably early 

 and many birds bred that year from two to three weeks earlier than I have 

 ever known before. From two to three broods are raised each year and the 

 number of eggs range from three to four. The last brood is on the wing 

 late in August and almost invariably numbers three, while the first brood 

 usually numbers four. 



This Towhee is very much shyer than erythrophthalmus, and its notes 

 are in a higher key, while the song is shorter. It never leaves the forest in 

 which it breeds and when erythrophthalmus is in South Carolina during 

 the winter and early spring months, alleni, instead of being on friendly 

 terms with it, usually drives it away. 



It does not require a microscope to identify this Towhee when it is in 

 one's hand, or in the field, as the yellowish white eye is a conspicuous char- 

 acter, and always holds good. I have seen the iris pure white, and I have yet 

 to see a specimen in a dull plumage that I cannot distinguish on sight. 



Mr. Benj. T. Gault, of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, while paying me a visit in 

 March, 1903, secured a female erythrophthalmus which has nearly three times 

 as much white on the lateral rectrix than several individual females of alleni. 

 A female alleni that I took on March 3, 1904, lacks all traces of the white 

 spot at the base of the primaries, which is a constant character of erythroph- 

 thalmus. 



Mr. Ridgway in his great work Birds of North and Middle America, 



