The Breeding of the Arctic Towhee 



By P. B. Peabody 



WHERE the difference between two allied races of birds consists, chiefly, 

 in the robustness or the slenderness of the hind-toe, differentiation 

 becomes a puzzling matter. And when the non-expert pronounces, on the 

 sole testimony of the field glass, the result is pretty sure to be confusion 

 worse confounded. The above fairly illustrates the questions that are being 

 asked and the problems pressing for solution as regards the status of the 

 Towhee races megalonyx and arcticus; in that particular region wherein the 

 habitats of the two geographic races overlap. A part of this region lies in 

 Northeastern Wyoming. Professor Knight's most faithful, painstaking and 

 comprehensive work on the birds of Wyoming is in error precisely in those 

 directions wherein a master of one science might be expected, inevitably, to 

 evince errors when dipping into non-cognate sciences in which he may be 

 greatly interested. In regions wherein all birdlife presents numerous and 

 grave confusions the wiser way, for the non-critical, — (in which category the 

 writer of this article belongs), — is to refer material to those whose judgment 

 may safely be considered final. 



This premise is here set down because of the fact that the "Birds of Wy- 

 oming" sets down the prevailing Towhee form of the Black Hills as being 

 megalonyx] and cites arcticns as less frequently occurring. In point of fact 

 the reverse is true. One might even venture a safe prediction that any ex- 

 ample of megalonyx that might be found in extreme northeastern Wyoming 

 will prove to be stragglers. 



While the Eastern and the Arctic Towhees occur together, during the 

 migrations, in Kansas, the Eastern Towhee has never, so far as I know, been 

 taken in the region of Wyoming covered by this article. In Kansas we note, 

 with great interest, the markedly-dissimilar similarity that prevails between 

 the plain birds and the streaked birds that flit through our Kansas hedges in 

 May. But during this silent period we have no opportunity of noting how 

 greatly unlike, in voice and in nuptial-time manners, are the two "sorts" of 

 Towhee the over-lappings of whose summer habitats lie, roughly, along the 

 Colorado-Kansas border-line. The songs of the two differ totally. So do 

 their call-notes and alarm-notes. When I went out to Wyoming I found my- 



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