338 NOTES ON THE 
for a morning ramble and make them hurry back in alarm to 
the shelter of heavier undergrowth.” 
They do not breed in the United States as is yet known 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Middle of back dull ash, each feather with a large blotch of 
brownish-red; top of head and neck and rump, similar, but 
with samller and more obsolete blotches. Upper tail coverts 
and exposed surface of wings and tail bright rufous. Beneath 
white, with the upper part of the breast and sides of throat 
and body with triangular spots of rufous and a few smaller ones 
of blackish on the middle of the breast. Inner edges of quills 
and tail feathers tinged with rufous-pink. No light lines on the 
head, but a patch of rufous on the cheeks. First quill rather 
less than the fifth. 
Length, 7.50; wing, 3.50. 
Habitat, eastern North America, west to the Plains. 
PIPILO ERYTHROPHTHALMUS (L.). (587.) 
TOWHEE. 
This is a very common summer resident throughout the 
entire State, arriving the last week in April, at the latitude 
from which I write. It reaches the borders adjoining Iowa 
from the 10th to the 15th of April, and Grant county in the 
first week of May. Few but those who are looking for these 
birds will be likely to recognize their earliest appearance 
owing to their shy, skulking habits. A ready pen in the hand 
of a keen observer says: ‘“Thickets, brushy pastures and 
barren tracts on the higher grounds are the favorite resorts of 
this species. The bottom poles of an old rail fence among the 
briers by the woods, is very likely to be its thoroughfare; and 
at all times it keeps, for the most part, on or near the ground. 
Sit down quietly in the thicket and you will hear its sharp 
rustle as it scratches among the dry leaves; this hen-like 
scratching, probably in search of food, being one of its marked 
characteristics of habit. As it flits from bush to bush, never 
flying far nor high, you can hear the whir-z-z-r of its rounded, 
concave wings, and as it opens its long, fan-like tail, with a 
jerking motion, the white markings contrast strongly with the 
jet black figure. It hops, and sidles, and dodges about, in and 
out through the brush-pile, the brambles aud the thicket, with 
a nervous, sparrow-like movement, its tail being often thrown 
up, after the manner of the Chat, or Wren.’’* 
*Our Birds and Their Haunts, page 577. (J. Hibbert Langille, M. A.) 
