276 LAND BIRDS 



After the breeding season, and often for his second 

 brood, the Crissal Thrasher ranges high up into the oak- 

 covered foot-hills, returning to the valleys with the first 

 fall days. 



The young Thrashers hatch in fourteen days. They are 

 naked, except for the faintest suggestion of down on 

 head and back, and are fed by regurgitation until four 

 days old. On the ninth day the young are feathered all 

 but the wings and tail, which still wear their sheaths, 

 and the featherless tracts which are on all young birds. 

 The iris of the eye is white at this time, but gradually 

 becomes straw-color like that of the adult. 



Unless startled into an earlier exit, the Thrasher nest- 

 lings do not leave the cradle until eleven or twelve days 

 old, and even then they hide in the bushes for many en- 

 suing days, helplessly waiting to be fed by the adult. 



Mr. Mearns tells in " The Auk " of shooting a female 

 Crissal Thrasher and, on going back the next day after 

 the nest, he found the male patiently brooding on the 

 two eggs. Surely such devotion in a bird deserves a 

 better end than the collector's basket. 



713. CACTUS WREN. — Heleodytes brunneicapillus. 

 Family : The Wrens, Thrashers, etc. 



Length: 8.00-8.75. 



Adults : Upper parts brown, back streaked with white and black ; wings 

 spotted with pale grayish brown and whitish on a dusky ground ; tail 

 black, except for brownish gray middle feathers, which are spotted 

 with black, and the outside feathers barred with white ; conspicuous 

 white superciliary stripe, bordered beneath by a dusky line ; throat 

 and chest white, heavily spotted with black, in contrast to buffy 

 brown belly, which is sparsely marked with brown. 



