70 CRISSAL THRASHER. 
wing and appeared to be taking care of themselves, showing that this species breeds 
early. As is the case with many birds of this warm climate, its season of reproduction 
is unusually extended. I did not find its nest until the 3d°of July, when one was found 
in the patch of sage-brush, built in a bush, close to the ground. Its presence was be- 
trayed by the actions of the male bird. The female was sitting upon three eggs, but 
skulked off upon the ground, among the bushes, and was immediately lost sight of. 
Another nest was discovered on June 14, in an isolated mesquite grove. It was placed 
upon a horizontal bough of a large mesquite bush (Prosopis [Algarobia] glandulosa), 
where it made a conspicuous object, owing to its bulk and exposed position. It was 
well built and contained two eggs, resembling those of the Robin. The proprieters of 
this nest divided their attention between the care of their nest and a family of young 
not yet capable of shifting for themselves. Two days later, the nest contained four 
eggs.... Another nest, found on February 19, was saddled upon the fork of a mesquite 
bush, about four feet from the ground, in part supported by the thorny branches of a 
neighboring bush. It rested upon a pile of sticks, and was surrounded by a bristling 
array of spiny ‘haw’ and mesquite twigs of moderate size; within this barricade the 
nest proper was placed; it is bowl-shaped, and, with the exception of a few feathers, 
composed entirely of vegetable substances, very neatly felted into a compact warm nest. 
The principal materials are fine withered grass, stems of plants, and shreddy inner bark. 
The two eggs are uniformly bluish-green, darker and greener than other specimens that 
have been in my cabinet nearly two years, which have faded to a bluish tint resembling 
a Robin’s egg. 
“Crissal Thrashers inhabit by preference bushy places in the vicinity of water 
courses iri the lower valleys, but range upward upon the oak-clad foothills to an alti- 
tude of 5,000 feet, or, in autumn, occasionally even a little higher. The Verde Valley 
here has an altitude of 3,500 feet, and a much warmer climate than the bordering 
mesas and foothills, which in winter are often deeply covered with snow. Although they 
may be occasionally met with in the snow belt, most of them descend into the warmer 
valleys in cold weather. I have seen numbers of them feeding upon the bare sand upon 
the edge of the Verde Valley River after a snowstorm, Making proper allowance for 
their being more conspicuous in winter on account of the absence of foliage, the species 
is undoubtedly far more plentiful in the Verde Valley during the winter season than in 
summer, when many of those which winter here move upward into the zone of scrub 
oaks, in which they breed in abundance wherever they can find water within a con- 
venient distance. The exodus takes place about the end of February, after which the 
species becomes comparatively scarce; and, by the middle of March, nearly all of those 
remaining are settled and occupied with domestic affairs. In the surrounding highlands, 
it breeds late in the spring. Nests were found upon the banks of the Big Bug and Ash 
Creeks, at an elevation of nearly 5,000 feet, which contained fresh eggs as late as the 
middle of May. Some were built in oak bushes, and one conspicuously located in a 
swinging grape-vine six feet above the ground. 
“The Red-vented Thrasher is omnivorous. It feeds largely upon berries and wild 
grapes. A thorny species of ‘haw’ is plentiful along the Rio Verde, which bears an 
abundance of berries, of green, red, and dark glaucous-blue colors, according to the 
