Jan., 1902. 1 
THE CONDOR 
15 
The Crissal Thrasher in California. 
BY M. F. GILMAN, BANNING, CAI.. 
T his thrasher, Harporhynichiis C7'is- 
salis, is not always listed as a Cali- 
fornia bird, but nevertheless it is 
quite common in portions of the Colo- 
rado desert this side of the Colorado 
River. Great numbers of them can be 
found in the dense thickets of mesquite 
and screw-bean in the depressed por- 
tion of the desert near the Salton sink. 
In what is known as “Conchilla Valley,” 
which is west of Salton, lying from 10 to 
260 below sea level, are found several 
new settlements, embryo towns — Indio, 
Thermal and Walters, and the old In- 
dian villages of Toros, Martinez and 
Agua Dulce. Near all these places the 
mesquite and screw-bean make great 
thickets and the crissal thrasher is at 
home. 
Twenty miles west of the rim of the 
ancient sea and about 500 feet above 
its level, is Palm Springs, a small settle- 
ment in what is called Palm Valley. 
From here the desert narrows till it 
merges into San Gorgonio Pass twenty 
miles to the west, — a narrow valley or 
pass 2,500 feet elevation, between San 
Gorgonio and San Jacinto peaks, 11,900 
and 10,800 feet high. In such a range 
of life zones — from sub-tropical to Hud- 
sonian — the diversity of species is great 
and there is much over-lapping. 
In twenty miles you may go from 
groves of native wild palms, — ( IVash- 
ingtonia filifera), to bare mountain 
peaks above timber-line and carrying 
snow most of the year; and a summer 
temperature of from 130° in the shade 
to below freezing point; and a range of 
birds from the verdin, Leconte thrasher 
and Gambel partridge to Clarke nut- 
cracker, thick-billed sparrow, and Audu- 
bon warbler. 
In January 1899 I secured my first 
crissal thrasher at Palm Springs. Later 
in the season I noticed a pairabout, and 
on May 4 .secured a set of three eggs. 
The nest differed little from the Califor- 
nia thrasher, being more compactly 
built and not quite so bulky. It was in 
a mesquite three feet from the ground 
and built close under a large branch, so 
there was hardly room to get my hand 
into the nest. The eggs slightly incub- 
ated, were a little smaller and shorter 
than those of the California thrasher, 
and plain green in color. The bird was 
very shy, and I never succeeded in 
seeing her on the nest, she always .slip- 
ping out on the opposite side before I 
could approach very near. 
In March 1901, in company with 
Nathan Hargrave of Banning, another 
bird lover, I made a trip to Toros and 
Martinez to study these birds where 
they were more numerous. On March 
18 and 19 we found ten nests contain- 
ing eggs or young. With one exception 
they were all built close up to an over- 
hanging limb making it difficult to in- 
sert the hand. All but one were also in 
the densest part of the mesquite and 
rather hard to see. And hard to get at 
too as anyone who has crawled through 
a mesquite thicket can te.stify. The 
nests were from 2)4 to 6 feet from the 
ground — the average being about 3)4 
feet and only one 6 feet. The sets 
were )4, Yi and jj — about evenly dis- 
tributed as to number of each. 
The nests contained in some cases, 
fresh eggs — in others incubation far ad- 
vanced and one had young birds in it. 
From brief observation I should say 
that individual birds ne.st near the same 
spot year after year. Nearly every 
nest found was near from one to three 
old nests, probabl}^ belonging to the 
same bird as no new nests were ever 
found close to each other. In one case 
three nests were found in the same tree 
— one new and two old ones. The 
number of old nests made more work 
for us, as we examined all seen. In 
such a dry climate with the annual 
rainfall from nil to possibly four inches, 
a year-old nest does not differ so much 
from a new one as might be expected 
