TOWHEE. 361 



their nest, which is fixed on the ground in a dry and elevated 

 situation and sunk beneath the surface among the fallen leaves, 

 sometimes under the shelter of a small bush, thicket, or brier. 

 According to the convenience of the site, it is formed of differ- 

 ent materials, sometimes, according to Wilson, being made of 

 leaves, strips of grape-vine bark, lined with fine stalks of dry 

 grass, and occasionally in part hidden with hay or herbage. 

 Most of the nests in this vicinity are made in solitary dry pine 

 woods without any other protection than some small bush or 

 accidental fallen leaves ; and the external materials, rather 

 substantial, are usually slightly agglutinated strips of red- cedar 

 bark, or withered grass with a neat lining of the same and 

 fallen pine leaves ; the lining sometimes made wholly of the 

 latter. The nest is also at times elevated from the ground by 

 a layer of coarse leaf-stalks such as those of the hickory. The 

 first brood are raised early in June, and a second is often 

 observed in the month of July ; but in this part of New Eng- 

 land they seldom raise more than one. The pair show great 

 soUcitude for the safety of their young, fluttering in the path 

 and pretending lameness with loud chirping when their nest is 

 too closely examined. 



The eastern form of the Towhee is not found west of Minnesota, 

 Kansas, and Texas. In the more northern and unsettled portions 

 of New England it is very rare or absent. It is common in Man- 

 itoba and southern Ontario, but rare in Quebec ; and one example, 

 captured near St. John, N. B., in 1881, is the only known instance 

 of its occurrence in the Maritime Provinces. 



The flocks migrate in winter to the Southern States, settling in 

 Virginia and southward. 



Note. The White-eyed Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus 



alleni) differs from the northern race chiefly in being of somewhat 

 smaller size, and in the iris being white instead of red. 



It was discovered during the spring of 1879 by Mr. C. J. May- 

 nard in Florida, and is said to be distributed along the coast north- 

 ward to South Carolina. 



