300 
REPOET OF THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS. 
way states that the bird begins to move north about the ist of Mareh. At a later 
date I found the birds quite common in the scrub on the top of Thompson s Peak, at 
an elevation of rather over 7,000 feet; and by the last of July u y S y o 
were taken. The bird is eminently a mountain form, thick brush being the prime es¬ 
sential to its choice of a home. It never, I think, descends into the low valleys, which, 
on the other hand, seems to be preferred by the allied form achxstacea. 
Hedy.meles Baird. 
H. melanocephalus (Sw.). Black-headed Grosbeak. 
By Mav 15 this species was very numerous about Carson, and appeared to be mating. 
Their food at this season appears to consist largely of the soit buds of various shru is, 
'especially of the willows. . , , ... ,, 
How far north the species goes I am not aware, my note-book simply furnishing tne 
statement of its presence in Northern California, but in much diminished numbers. 
As it reaches Fort Steilacoom along the coast, it may attain a similar latitude in the 
interior. Its habits of nidification appear to be everywhere about the same, and to 
correspond pretty closely with those of the rose-breasted. Its architecture is of the 
simplest kind, the nest being made up of fine weed-stalks and similar light material, 
which are arranged in as circular a form as the stiff, unyielding nature of the stems will 
allow. A lining of tine rootlets disposed in a shallow circular form completes the 
structure. This is almost always placed toward the extremities of the lower limbs of 
trees, often overhanging a stream or deep raviue; more rarely the nest is placed on 
bushes. 
Three eggs are occasionally laid, more usually two. They are light blue, irregularly 
spotted with reddish brown and purple; usually, though not always, most thickly at 
the larger ends. 
Considerable variation in size obtains between sets. Two measure 1.05 X -73,1.02 X -75, 
and .95 X .67, .93 X .68. 
Cyanospiza Baird. 
C. ameena (Say). Lazuli Finch. 
A common summer resident about Carson, but met with less frequently toward the 
north. Nevertheless, Cooper reports it from Puget Sound, and Suckley found it in 
numbers in spring at The Dalles, Oregon. It was found by us to breed up to an alti¬ 
tude of 7,000 feet. 
Pipilo Vieillot. 
P. maculatus megalonyx Bd. Long-spurred Towhee. 
This, the only form of the towhee met with by us, is extremely numerous along the 
eastern slope as high as the Columbia River. I fully agree with Mr. Ridgway that 
specimens of the Pipilo found along the eastern slope of the Sierras are absolutely in¬ 
distinguishable by external characters from megalonyx. They appear to show no 
approach to Oregon us , as that variety is illustrated by individuals from the northwestern 
coast. Nor have I been able to find in the habits, songs, and notes of the Pipilo of the 
Sierras the striking peculiarities which had such weight with Mr. Ridgway as to 
induce him to identify it as oregonus, in the face of its apparent likeness to megalonyx 
in form and colors. On the contrary, the habits of the towhees, as they have fallen 
under my notice in the Rocky Mountains and in the Sierras, have appeared to be 
essentially the same. Mr. Ridgway was especially impressed with the fact that the 
mewing call, which all observers have attributed to megalonyx, was never heard by him 
from the form found near Carson. But a line in my note-book records the fact that 
this same mewing note was the only one heard by ine at this locality. Cooper, how¬ 
ever, says that the call-notes of these two forms are alike, so that they have no dis¬ 
tinctive value. 
In the matter of birds’ habits, differing circumstances of observation enter so largely 
as factors in the results obtained by difl'erent observers, that such evidence becomes, 
at best, but a precarious means of discrimination, especially between birds closely 
Telated ; as, for instauce, the members of the genus Pipilo . Apparent discrepancies in 
records are by no means always, perhaps, in fact, only in comparatively rare instances, 
attributable to inaccuracies of observation. But too often the fact is overlooked, or 
practically ignored, that in birds of the same species, at the same locality, and even at 
the same time, there may be a very marked diversity of habits, which is'an expression 
of nothing more or less than individual taste or the result of quite adventitious cir¬ 
cumstances. Such being the case, it is scarcely to be wondered at that in distant 
localities, where the observer is ever on the alert for new facts, he should, not infre¬ 
quently , be misled into false comparisons by a note new to his experience, or some 
hitheito unnoticed habit, which, perhaps, had it been marked nearer home, would 
have attracted but casual attention. 
