March, 1905 | 
39 
Breeding Notes from New Mexico 0 
BY FLORENCE MERRIAM BAILEY 
O UR Biological Survey work in New Mexico in 1904 took us into the high 
Rockies during the latter part of the avian breeding season. Between 
9500 feet, at the lower edge of the Canadian zone and 12,700 feet at the 
upper edge of the Hudsonian zone, among the birds that we found feeding young 
during the last week in July and the first week in August were such species as 
Picoides a. dorsalis, Empidonax dijpicilis, Zonotrichia leucophrys, Junco caniceps , Me- 
lospiza li?icolni , Piranga ludoviciana , Tachycineta t. lepida, Vireo g. swain- 
soni , Dendroica auduboni, Ant has pensilvanicus , Myadestes townsendi , Hylocichla g. 
auduboni, and Merula m. propinqua. Pinicola e. montan a was doubtless also of the 
number as the throat of one shot was stuffed out with small seeds and insects ap- 
parently collected for its young. 
The glacial amphitheater at the foot of Wheeler Peak was richly populated 
with the mountain-loving white crowns or striped-heads, as the Indians of the 
region aptly call them. I he willows in the bottom of the amphitheater above the 
high water level of the lake were full of them and they were common up to timber- 
line. The only nest that we found was in a spruce bush at our 1 1 400 foot camp, 
but young were being fed all about us. The sparrows might have been taken for 
flycatchers by a novice, for they were constantly springing up in the air in pursuit 
of insects. So eager was their chase that they not only flew into the air but actu- 
ally ran down into the water after insects. This we discovered one morning on 
visiting the lake. The white crowns, in company with Lincoln sparrows, were 
busily flying back and forth from the willows to the edge of the lake, hopping out 
onto the stones and wading into the water. We were puzzled at first to know 
what they were about, but on looking closely saw that the bottom of the lake and 
the stones along the edge were covered with the sandy tubes of caddice fly larvae 
from which the flies with their long wings were rapidly emerging. 
As the caddice flies came out of their cases the birds snapped them up 
eagerly, flying off with them to their nests. When the hatching process was too 
slow the sparrows flew up into the air after those that had escaped them. 
Other species of birds were equally busy, the violet greens, western flycatch- 
ers, Audubon warblers, and solitaires, in flycatching; the three-toed woodpeckers 
in digging out wood-boring larvae for their hungry broods. But while the sum- 
mer resident birds were thus absorbed with their young families, the resident early 
breeders had not altogether set their young adrift. The handsome black and white 
nutcrackers (Nnci/raga columbiana') were flying back and forth hunting for insects 
on the slopes above timberline, and although March and April seem to cover their 
normal breeding period, the insistant and comparatively weak voices of immature 
birds were heard as late as the last of July. One bird of the year which came to 
camp on July 27 was still under the active guardianship of its parent and was seen 
fluttering its wings for food, though the hint was ignored. 
A young Rocky Mountain jay {Perisoreus c. capitalis) was also seen fluttering 
its wings on July 26. Indeed, when our camp in the spruces was first discovered 
by a pair of these friendly birds — on July 20 — after testing our camp biscuits they 
flew off, to return promptly with one of their grown brood, readily distinguished 
a Published with the permission of Dr. C. Hart Merriam, Chief of U. S. Biological Survey. 
