a8 Holterhoff on Nest and Eggs of LeContes Thrasher. [January 



It can hardly be doubted that many similar examples of ex- 

 treme individual variation remain to be detected Among the 

 Terns two cases almost exactly parallel with those I have men- 

 tioned have already been brought to light by Mr. William 

 Brewster,* though in these instances the author's arguments 

 were based v^^holly upon the evidence oflered b}^ plumage, and, 

 as a result, a generally accepted species was reduced to the rank 

 of a synonym. A state of things no less remarkable is now 

 familiar to ornithologists in the frequent melanism, partial or 

 entire, seen in several species of Hawks ; in the pure dichroma- 

 tism of certain Owls and Herons ; and in the irregularity with 

 which the waxy appendages are assumed in the genus Ampelis. 



NEST AND EGGS OF LECONTE'S THRASHER {HAR- 

 PORHTNCHUS REDIVIVUS LECONTII). 



BY G. HOI.TERHOP^F, JR. 



In an article published in the ''American Naturalist" for March, 

 1881, I gave a short description of the nest and eggs of Le Conte's 

 Thrasher. As I believe these to be the first eggs known of this 

 rare Thrasher, and as yet unique, I will endeavor to give a more 

 complete and exact description of the set. .The "find" was made 

 near a small station on the Southern Pacific Railroad, called Flow- 

 ing Wells. This is in the heart of the Colorado Desert, about 

 seventy-five miles north of Fort Yuma. The country thereabout 

 is a barren, sandy desert, broken by an occasional dry arroyo or 

 river bed, scarce worthy of the name, as they are only rivers 

 when bearing oft^ the deluge from some fortuitous cloud-burst. 

 Scattered sparing!}' along the course of these fickle streams is a 

 stunted growth of mesquite and palo-verde trees, the commonest 

 and most typical forms of desert vegetation. It was while w^an- 

 dering up one of these arroyos, wearied and almost parched by 

 the fierce heat, that I cavight sight of a dusky-graj- bird flitting 

 from bush to bush, always in short, jerky flights, and close to the 

 ground. Expectation cheered my footsteps. The bird, alighting 



* Some Additional Light on the so-called Sterna Portlandica, Ridgway. Ann. Lye. 

 Nat. Hist., N. Y., Vol. XI, pp. 201-207. 



