BLACKBIRDS, ORIOLES, ETC. 
295 
Remarks. — Dr. Allen has recorded two females showing 1 great variation 
in plumage — both with throat and breast black, and one with whole head 
blackish like yearling males, the other with head like the ordinary adult 
female. 
Distribution. — Resident in Lower Sonoran zone from western Texas to 
California, and from southern parts of Utah and Nevada south to Lower 
California and Mexico. 
Nest. — Woven of grass, yucca fibers, horsehair, cotton, and string when 
available, placed usually in yuccas, but sometimes in other trees. Eggs: 
2 to 4, pale blue, blotched and streaked with browns and grays. 
Food. — Grasshoppers, beetles, caterpillars, larvae, fruit, and berries. 
The name parisorum is associated with interesting desert canyons 
whose wide-sloping sides are covered with stones, agaves, dasylirions, 
yuccas, and other arid thorn brush, and crowned with the fouquiera 
whose widely spreading arms are silhouetted against the blue sky. 
In the midst of a cactus wren’s song, it may be, you will hear the 
clear meadowlark-like note of the oriole. One that we found in such 
a situation in New Mexico was a brilliapt black and lemon adult in 
a low juniper feeding a brood of dingy greenish yellow young who 
looked like commoners in camp clothes beside a personage in broad¬ 
cloth. Although his family were grown and picking about feeding 
themselves, their indulgent parent was diligently hunting caterpillars 
for them, having time for only an occasional outburst of his beauti¬ 
ful song. On the hills back of the Pecos River we often found pari¬ 
sorum nests in the yuccas, sometimes in the same one with a white- 
necked raven’s nest. They were generally hung under the sharp 
drooping blades of the yucca and woven of fibers frayed from the 
edges of yucca leaves. 
In the Chisos Mountains, Mr. Bailey often found the orioles feed¬ 
ing among the flowers of a giant agave, the greenish yellow color 
of which they match in a suggestively protective manner. 
Subgenus Pendulinus. 
505. Icterus cucullatus sennetti Ridgw. Sennett Oriole. 
Adult male .— Facial mask, throat, back, wings, and tail black, wings with 
white ; rest of plumage deep cadmium yellow. Adult female : under parts 
pale gamboge, back and scapulars grayish. Male: length (skins) 7.40- 
7.86, wing 3.17-3.36, tail 3.46-3.90, bill .78-81. Female: length (skins) 
7.00-7.50, wing 3.07-3.20, tail 3.30-3.48, bill .72-.77. 
Distribution. — From the lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas, south to 
Mexico. 
In the narrow strip between the Rio Coloral and the Mexican line 
in Texas, where the dense, thorny'thickets are full of cactus and low 
yucca trees, the Sennett oriole makes its home. Here, as we were 
looking for the nest of a verdin one day, an oriole flew from under 
the drooping spears of a yucca. On inspection we found one of the 
