The Brown Towhees 



head would find an answering challenge in the glass, and he would fly 

 at it again. Hour after hour this continued, until the bird was com- 

 pletely exhausted, or until the light changed and the reflection vanished. 



"This continued day after day and week after week with scarcely an 

 interruption, and became a positive nuisance. As time went on and his 

 attacks netted him nothing, Pipilo worked himself into greater and greater 

 frenzy until blood specks from his beak often covered the lower part of the 

 pane. The small head feathers, loosened in the fracas, would stick to 

 these blood spots and necessitate frequent window washing, in addition to 

 the 'damnable iteration' of his tap, tap, tapping at the pane. Nothing 

 was done about it, however, and it continued as an almost daily perform- 

 ance until early summer. Then, with the close of the breeding season, 

 the bird stopped of his own accord." 



Nests of Pipilo crissalis are usually placed at moderate heights in 

 shrubbery or trees. The birds often exhibit considerable skill in construc- 

 tion, and some of their nests, especially of those whose builders do not 

 have access to the miscellaneous waste of civilization, are models of 

 beauty. The eggs, usually three in number in the southern portion of the 

 bird's range, four or even five northerly, are pale blue (really, pale niagara 

 green), handsomely though sparingly marked and short-scrawled with 

 purplish black. They resemble, thus, to a striking degree, the eggs of 

 certain blackbirds (A gelatines) . The female, elsewhere so confiding, is 

 singularly shy in and about the nest, and does not pose well for the pho- 

 tographer. The bird figured here had built in a lantana bush hard against 

 a window. By dint, therefore, of darkening the room, her confidence was 

 sufficiently Avon to permit of portraiture at long range. Nesting is the 

 main business of life, and the Towhees take theirs quite seriously. At 

 least two broods are raised each season, and five or six months of each 

 year are given over to the activities attendant upon or anticipatory of 

 chick-raising. For all this, the birds fall easy prey to prowlers, and the 

 ranks of the species never seem to be unduly swelled, as is often the case, 

 for example, with the Linnet (Carpodacus mexicanus frontalis). 



408 



