THRUSHES, BLUEBIRDS, ETC. : TOWNSEND SOLITAIRE 579 
season when nothing but left-over waste products can be obtained. Its presence 
should be fostered at every opportunity (Kalmbach). 
General Habits. —The beautiful greenish blue Mountain Bluebird, 
which, as Mr. Ligon says, like the Western Robin and Gray-headed 
Junco, is widely distributed in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, was 
nearing the end of its nesting season when we reached the Upper Pecos 
in 1903, for while we found a nest in a grove of aspens on the edge of 
the open grassy mesa at 10,300 feet, we found families of old and young 
going about together at 11,000 feet. By August 5, numbers of Moun¬ 
tain Bluebirds, Chipping Sparrows, Flickers, and Juncos were wandering 
about in families, the woods as well as the open meadows being delight¬ 
fully filled with birds. On August 11, we were much pleased to find 
a flock of the Bluebirds, together with Red-shafted Flickers and 
Chipping Sparrows, at 12,300 feet, on a protected slope in the dwarf 
timberline trees on the south side of Truchas. 
The next year, in the middle of September, on the east slope of the 
mountains north of Taos, Mr. Bailey saw one catching grasshoppers on 
the wing above 12,000 feet. Early in the month it had been one of 
the commonest birds, found wherever the open slopes and big grassy 
stretches afforded good feeding grounds. Two years later, early in 
September, we found the Mountain Bluebird in the Jemez Mountains 
with the Chestnut-backed, and on November 6, a large flock, mainly 
young, was seen in the junipers bordering Cactus Flat at the foot of the 
Mogollon Mountains. 
In Santa Fe, in the days of the early surveys, Colonel McCall found 
this Bluebird nesting in bird boxes, and it is to be hoped that as the 
higher part of the country becomes more settled and bird houses are 
habitually offered it, this, the most beautiful of all the Bluebirds, 
may, like the easterner, come to be a bird of the dooryard, where its 
exquisitely tinted plumage, its soft, musical warble, and its gentle 
ways may be enjoyed to the full by its human neighbors. 
Additional Literature.—Trafton, G. H., Methods of Attracting Birds, 26, 
1910. 
TOWNSEND SOLITAIRE: Myadestes tdwnsendi (Audubon) 
Description. — Length: 7.8-9.S inches, wing 4.3-4.8, tail 4.1-4.7. Bill short , 
flattened, widened at base and deeply cleft; wings long and pointed, tail double- 
rounded, feathers tapering; feet weak. Adults: Brownish gray, paler beneath; 
tail with middle feathers like back, outside feathers with terminal half of outer 
web dull white and inner web broadly tipped with white; wings dusky with two 
whitish bars and bases of quills largely huffy at base; under surface of quills shounng 
oblique huffy bands. Young: Head and upperpart of body spotted with buff, the 
feathers broadly margined with blackish; underparts pale buff, the feathers margined 
with black or sooty. 
Range. —Breeds in Boreal Zones from east-central Alaska, southwestern Macken¬ 
zie, and western Alberta south through Rocky Mountains to New Mexico and 
