TEXAS SPARROW. 



Embernagra ru£virgata Lawrence. 



Plate XXXII. Fig. 3. 



^HE flora as well as the ornis of south-eastern Texas, especially in the region of 

 the lower Rio Grande, is very characteristic. Of birds w^e meet here quite a 

 number of species not found elsewhere in our country. Trees of great beauty abound 

 in the bottom lands, and the adjoining rather level country is covered with almost 

 impenetrable thorny thickets, called chaparral. The many yuccas, always beautiful, are 

 a magnificent sight when in flower. The cactus family is represented by many species. 

 The Indian fig attains tree size, and other species, armed with formidable spines, form 

 impenetrable masses. Underneath these often very large cactus specimens skunks and 

 rattle-snakes find safe retreats. Dasylirions and agaves are also common eveiywhere. 

 During summer the heat is very intense, but the winter months are very mild, and 

 innumerable birds find excellent winter-quarters among the dense thickets of spiny 

 shrubs. During the spring migration and in the breeding season the chaparral swarms 

 with birds. "While the Warblers, bound northward, hunt among the branches for insects, 

 many of the resident species are engaged with their brood. 



One of the characteristic species of this locality is the Texas Sparrow or Green 

 Finch. Mr. George B. Sennett met with the bird abundantly on the lower Rio Grande. 

 This painstaking and accurate ornithologist writes as follows: "This was one of the 

 first birds we saw at Lomita, and remained constant during our stay. It is quite tame 

 and confined to low shrubbery. Its song I can describe no better than Dr. J. C. Merrill 

 has already done: a repeated chip-chip-chip, begun slowly but rapidly increasing until 

 the notes run into each other, and which w^hen once heard and identified, is always 

 distinguishable. It feeds upon larvae and seeds, especially the seeds of the AArild tomato, 

 and begins to breed early." 



Mr. Sennett adds that on April 19, 1878, a young bird more than half grown 

 came under his notice and also a nest containing two eggs about to be hatched — all found 

 in one clump of bushes. Many nests were found by Mr. Sennett as well as by Dr. 

 Merrill. The doctor first found them in the vicinity of Brownsville, and later Mr. Sen- 

 nett found them abundantly some seventy miles further up the river. "The domed nests 

 are situated in the heart of bushes, generally from two to five feet above the ground. 

 They were found in all sorts of open thickets. One I detected close by the roadside, in 

 a clump of bushes, under a small tree; another on a dry knoll, which was covered with 

 cacti, thorny bushes of various kinds, and scattering trees of mesquite and ebony, and 

 in close proximity to nests of the Long-billed Thrasher and the Yellow-billed Cuckoo. 

 Most frequently, however, nests were found in those depressions near woods, w^here 

 water stands during the wet season, which, when dry, abound with grass hummocks 

 and bunches of rank weeds covered with wild tomato vines. The nests are nearly round 

 in shape, large for the size of the bird, and constructed of dried weed-stems, pieces of 



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