313 Mr. H. E. Dresser on the Birds of Southern Tewas. 



XXVIII. — Notes on the Birds of Southern Texas. 

 By H. E. Dressee. 



In offering the following notes on the birds observed in Southern 

 Texas and the country adjacent to the Rio Grande of Mexico, it 

 may probably be as well to preface them with the following par- 

 ticulars as to my own movements. I arrived at Matamoras, 

 Mexico, on the 26th June, 1863, under rather unfavourable 

 auspices, having been upset crossing the bar of the river, losing 

 everything excepting ray gun, pistol, and some articles of value, 

 which I carried on my person. The loss of ray clothes did not 

 trouble me much ; but the loss of my papers, books, and particu- 

 larly of my ' American Ornithology,^ was very annoying, as I did 

 not know much about the birds of the Southern States and Mexico, 

 and I was fully aware that ornithology would be the only amuse- 

 ment I should find during my stay. I remained at Matamoras 

 from the day mentioned until the first week in September, and 

 spent all my spare time shooting and skinning birds. The coun- 

 try near the town is barren-looking, being low, sandy, and over- 

 grown with Cacti and Algaroba (Mezquite) bushes, with very few 

 trees of any size. At one end of the town is a good-sized lagoon 

 or pond, formerly the main bed of the river, beyond which are 

 some fair-sized trees and a field, and beyond that again the Rio 

 Grande. This and a grove some two miles up the river proved 

 the best places for collecting, and many were the birds I shot 

 there. I found the season too far advanced for eggs, nor did I 

 obtain any but those of the Mocking-bird [Mimus polyglottus) . At 

 first I did not meet with a great variety of species ; but those 

 which I did procure were, I suppose, all breeding near there. 

 At the town-lagoon Agel&us phceniceus, Quiscalus macruriis, 

 Scolecophagus cyanocephalus, Grus americanus, Florida ccerulea, 

 jEgialites vociferus, Recurvirostra americana, Himantopus nigri- 

 collis, Symphemia semipalmata, Fulica americana, Sterna frenata, 

 Hydrochelidon plumbea, Rhijnchops nigra, and occasionally Den- 

 drocygna autumnalis were found ; and near the river, wherever 

 there were trees and bushes, and in the " chaparral,^^ Cathartes 

 aura, C. atratus, Coccyzus americanus, Geococcyx californkmus, 

 Chordiles popetue, C. henryi, and C. texensis, Milvulus forficatus, 



