July, 1912 
BIRDS OF THE COTTONWOOD OROVKS 
ll.S 
for its prey; Pyg'my Nuthatches chattered softly, vireos sang their leisurely songs, 
and one hunted so near that its eye-ring, lores, and wing bars stood out conspicu- 
ously ; while a preoccupied Orange-crowned W’arhler coming from the greenery 
toward the light almost flew against my arm hovering unsuspectingly close to my 
face. As the busy throng hunted through the cottonwood tops, a pair of Cat- 
birds mewed in the thicket below\ and Western 1 louse Wrens and Green-tailed 
Towhees went about their lowly business. Among the visiting migrants one .soli- 
tary Rocky Mountain Creeper was seen on a cottonwood trunk. 
Another grove of the beautiful cottonwoods near the Taos Pueblo, the 
Glorieta of the Indians, was perhaps the most notable that we saw. The old 
trees had seamed patriarchal trunks and their high-arching branches carrie ! 
their finely cut leafage low to 
the ground. Many of the 
great trees had twdn trunks, 
some stood alone, others in 
brotherly groups. An artist 
when visiting camp talked 
enthusiastically of the subtle 
tints of their bark and the 
effect of afternoon sunshine 
permeating their delicately 
foliaged green tops. The cot- 
tonw'ood trunks rose from a 
dense thicket of undergrowth 
— scrub oak, juniper, and wild 
])lum, tangled with rose and 
overgrown with poison ivy 
and clematis whose festoon- 
ing vines made banks of 
green and white bloom. In 
this thicket in w'hich our camp 
w^as a cleared circle, birds 
abounded. Spurred Towhees 
scratched among the leaves 
and flew up to sing on 
the plum bushes, and one 
black-headed parent was Pig- 43. the XAunow-LEAFED cottonwood 
discovered busily feeding Courte-sy of Biological .Survey 
grown young who were following him around teasing with hungry 
insistance. A small Wright Flycatcher, when not too busy feed- 
ing Its young in the nest over our tent, kept uj) a pleasant scc-z^'ick, scc- 
U'ick, scc-wick, and swcc-lwo, while a We.stern h'lycatcher reiterated cat-it. cat-it, 
cat-it, and vireos and many other small feathered householders sang and hunted 
in the shade of the tree tops in the sunny mornings, filling the grove with their 
delightful music. 
A teasing .song that .1 did not recognize, one morning led me into the dense 
growth bordering tbe irrigation ditch of the Taos Indians. When whistled to, 
the invisible bird answered back promptly — or so it seemed — between songs mov- 
ing about getting his Ifreakfast. Put where was he? When finally discovered, his 
dark gray head and breast were cut oft' so sharply from the yellow belly that went 
