TEXAN CARDINAL. 



Pyrrhuloxia sinuata Bonaparte. 



S^HE Texan Cardinal is an inhabitant of the dense thorny thickets or chaparral, 

 7 consisting of mesquit bushes, prickly pear (Opuntia), and other cacti, yuccas 

 and thorny shrubs, of the lower Rio Grande, being a rather common bird in southern 

 Texas and in northern Mexico, and thence through southern Arizona to Lower Cali- 

 fornia. Although a fine and elegant bird, it cannot compare in beauty and song 

 with the Cardinal Redbird. It is very shy and suspicious and very difficult to 

 observe in the almost impenetrable thickets. It seems to be a resident species wherever 

 it occurs. In winter these Cardinals collect in small flocks, which roam around in the 

 chaparral. According to Captain McCown, who observed these birds on the lower Rio 

 Grande, they have a strong partiality for damp and bushy woods. So far as he observed 

 they never ventured far from the river. He describes the bird as gay and sprightly, gener- 

 ally seen in company with others of the same species, frequently erecting its crest and 

 calling to its mate or comrades. In its voice and general habits it appeared to him 

 very similar to the common species. 



No other ornithologist has studied the birds of the lower Rio Grande so thoroughly 

 and has written more interestingly about them than Mr. Geo. B. Sennett. In the close 

 vicinity of Brownsville he found the Texan Cardinals quite abundant. One day, while 

 following up a brush fence just without the city, he observed eleven. At Hidalgo, further 

 up the river, he met occasionally solitary pairs in the thickets away from the habitations. 



"Their habits," Mr. Sennett continues, "I found to be much like those of the 

 Cardinal Redbird, only they keep closer to the ground. I several times heard the whistle 

 of the male, and I could readily distinguish it from the note of the common Cardinal. 

 I found this species very shy ; and when surprised, instead of flying boldly off to another 

 bush, it would invariably dart toward the ground, and fly along the brush, behind some 

 projection, or through the fence to the opposite side." 



At Lomita, seven miles abovfc Hidalgo, and sixty-five miles from Brownsville, 

 Mr. Sennett found this Cardinal tolerably common. It breeds fully as early as the 

 Virginia Cardinal, and there is little difference between the habits of the two, but the 

 Texan is more confined to open and exposed situations near settlements. It was always 

 shy and suspicious, so that Mr. Sennett rarely came upon it unaware. 



"On April 17, at Lomita," writes Mr. Sennett, "and within a short distance of 

 the river, I flushed a female from her nest, and found four eggs. The nest was about 

 five feet from the ground, among the close-growing shoot of a small ebony stub, stand- 

 ing alone near a brush fpnce, and not far from the roadway. It was rather compact 

 and small for the size of the bird, being about three and one-half inches in diameter on 



