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 
solicitude 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. 
Note, — The WHITE-EYED TOWHEE (Pifilo 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, to which State it is restricted. 
