98 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XVIII 
immediately applied, and now the General smokes his after-breakfast cigar in 
peace and comfort. 
This is, as I say, the most persistent bird of which I have record, but sev- 
eral other cases have come under observation. For two years an Anthony 
Towhee has started the same performance on my own garage window in Pasa- 
dena, but in these instances the bird was less determined, and within a week or 
so abandoned the attempt of his own accord. In the same way individuals have 
formed the habit at the Pierpont Cottages, in the Ojai. There have been at 
least three different cases since 1911, when I have happened to be there, but 
these birds, also, gave up the attempt after a comparatively short trial. On 
two other occasions friends have told me of birds which had an obsession for 
“getting into a certain room of their house”. On investigation these also 
proved to be Anthony Towhees, which had not the slightest burglarious intent, 
Fig. 32. Scratching about among the dry grass stems and dead leaves after the 
FASHION OF HIS MACULA TUS KINDRED. 
but were merely employed in this strange phase of rival conquest. 
The habit is not entirely restricted to Towhees, since I have seen two in- 
stances of California Linnets attempting the same thing. That even our West- 
ern Mocker is sometimes tricked into this same waste of time and strength 
seems certain from the statement of Mr. Sylvanus Tyler, of Pasadena. His in- 
terest in birds for many years makes him an accurate observer, and he assures 
me that a Western Mocker attacked a window across the street from his home 
with tremendous fury and daily persistence one spring. Tt was finally found 
dead under the window, and as there was no mark on the bird, death was pre- 
sumably caused by the continued shock of the glass upon its beak. 
The habit appears so much more common, however, with Pipilo, that one 
is justified in taking him as the exemplification of this strange perversion of 
