The Plumbeous Gnatcatcher 
the Author 
MAJOR BROOKS CONSIDERS THE PROSPECT 
A TYPICAL DESERT RANGE OF THE PLUMBEOUS GNATCATCHER 
only along the western border of the former; but the plumbean territory 
is extensively invaded by carulea in winter, notably along the banks 
of the lower Colorado River. And while the breeding ranges of plumbea 
and ccerulea are faunally distinct, there is a little overlapping or inter- 
digitation of alternating canyons and ridges in certain desert ranges. 
Stephens (MS) says, “Rather common residents of the Colorado 
Valley, Colorado Desert, and parts of the Mojave Desert. The seasonal 
distribution of the Plumbeous Gnatcatchers has not been worked out. 
I surmise, however, that in summer they frequent valleys and com¬ 
paratively level plains, and that in winter the bulk of the species goes 
to the edges of the hills and the mouths of the canyons in the foothills— 
the short migration being as frequently north as south.” Grinnell 
says 1 of their occurrence in the Colorado Valley: “The desert wash 
association with its catclaw, palo verde, ironwood, and smaller woody 
and stiff-twigged plants, was the preferred habitat of this bird, though 
it occurred also in the atriplex and mesquite belts along the river, even 
straying occasionally into the arrowweeds and willows.” I found it 
common in the creosote belt below Palm Springs in January, 1913, 
and again in the atriplex wastes adjacent to the Salton Sea. In Arizona, 
1 Mammals and Birds of the Colorado Valley, p. 214. 
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