44 
THE NATURALIST AND COLLECTOR 
Notes on the Ornithology of Texas. 
[From Report of Sennet in 1878.] 
CURVE-BILLED THRUSH. 
(Hdrporhynclius Curvirostr is.) 
/ TM1IS thrash, by some called the 
J ‘‘gray curve-billed, ” reaches 
into our southern border from 
Mexico. Its nearest relative, Pal¬ 
mer’s thrush (var. palmeri ), and 
other curve-billed forms of the genus, 
are found in the higher altitudes 
of New Mexico and Arizona. The 
northern limit of this thrush is not 
fully determined, but it can be consid¬ 
ered common in Southern Texas, and 
most common between Fort Brown and 
Ringgold Barracks, along the river. 
Here great alluvial deposits produce 
berries and insects in abundance for 
food, and tangled thickets, as well as 
great prickly-pear cactuses, afford 
cover and breeding resorts. In 1877, I 
collected from Hidalgo down to near 
the mouth of the river. On this trip I 
collected most of the time at a point 
several miles above Hidalgo, in the 
heart of the greatest growth of timber 
to be found on the river; and it was 
there that I found the curve-billed 
thrush more numerous than ever be¬ 
fore. In point of numbers it nearly 
equalled the mockingbird and long¬ 
billed thrush. The three species com¬ 
prise all the representatives of the 
family observed by me during the trip. 
The curve-billed thrush in color some 
what resembles the mockingbird, and 
in the bushes, where other characteris¬ 
tics are not readily distinguished, may 
be taken for it at short range. This 
species, like the long--billed, is usually 
more fond of dense cover than the 
mockingbird, and while not often 
found in the heaviest timber, yet will 
be found in the thickets common on 
the edges of such tracts. In open 
woodland, where clumps of tall thorny 
bushes and cacti surround the scat¬ 
tered trees, it is always found, and us¬ 
ually in company with the long-billed 
thrush. I did not obtain many fresh- 
plumaged specimens. By the first of 
April, the plumage becomes faded and 
worn; and, by the latter part of May, 
moulting begins. About this time, 
also, the small black fruit or berry of 
the como-tree, upon which the bird 
feeds, ripens, and it becomes almost 
impossible to shoot and prepare a spec¬ 
imen without the plumage becoming 
stained with the purple juices which 
issue from the mouth and vent. I 
brought home only five birds, but over 
forty sets of eggs. 
In nesting, the habits of this species 
vary to suit the locality. In districts 
where chaparral covers the country, 
there is no respectable growth of tim¬ 
ber, but now and then openings, prin¬ 
cipally occupied by prickly-pear cac¬ 
tuses and stunted mesquite-trees, and 
here their nests will be found in cac¬ 
tuses more frequently perhaps than in 
trees. But at Lomila I found five nests 
in trees to one in cacti. Though us¬ 
ually suspicious and wary, this bird is 
wonderfully bold at times in choosing 
sites for its nest. In my notes of 1877 
I mention a nest with four eggs taken 
from an outhouse, in the center of a 
village. At Lomita Ranch, close by a 
large and much frequented gateway, 
stand a young ebony tree, from which, 
in plain sight, and some twelve feet 
from the ground, I took a nest and 
four eggs in April of the following sea¬ 
son, and on May 20, I took a nest and 
three fresh eggs, at a height of four¬ 
teen feet, in a large ebony, close by a 
pathway on the edge of a cornfield. 
