THRUSHES, BLUEBIRDS, ETC.: TOWNSEND SOLITAIRE 581 
scured by markings varying from brick-red to lavender; in others pale blue, spattered 
with lavender, brick-red, and brown blotches and spots of lengthwise trend, thickest 
at larger end. 
Food. —Insects, including large black ants, and caterpillars; also small wild fruits 
including chokecherries, serviceberries, rose haws, honeysuckle berries and elder¬ 
berries. In fall and winter mainly juniper berries and pine seeds. 
General Habits. —The Solitaire, when seen in silhouette perching 
on a dead branch, appears as a large, dark bird, about the size of a 
Pine Grosbeak, with a long hanging tail and a surprisingly short bill. 
During the nesting season it is one of the most interesting birds of the 
Sangre de Cristo Mountains. When climbing Pecos Baldy, on a fiat- 
topped grassy ridge at 12,000 feet, where Pipits were nesting and 
Horned Larks flying around with grown young, we flushed one of the 
Solitaires from an old charred log and to our surprise discovered its 
nest fitted into a burned hollow underneath, resting on the ground 
roofed over by the log. In this case the nest was made from material 
close at hand—grass and weed stems. Later, when climbing Truchas 
Peak, we found one of the birds in the straggling dwarf spruces at 
12,600 feet. Near camp, at the foot of Pecos Baldy at 11,600 feet, one 
was found perching on a low branch from which, as it flew down to the 
ground for food, the light line down its wing showed effectively. Here 
one was also seen on the top of a bowlder bathing in a little rain pool, 
unconscious of observers. 
In the mountains north of Taos, at 11,400 feet, as late as August 2, 
we saw an old bird flying around catching insects and feeding them to 
a young one out of the nest. In fiycatehing it fluttered around in the 
air much like a Waxwing, frequently giving its plaintive call note. 
On the Upper Pecos in 1883, during the last half of July, Mr. 
Henshaw found “ families of young birds in the curious mottled plumage 
resembling young thrushes, being led through the pines by the old 
birds” (1885-1886, p. 331). 
The relation of the Solitaire to the thrushes in habit was impressed 
upon Mr. Ridgway when he disturbed one near its nest. In an anxious 
manner that betrayed its secret, he says, “it flitted before us, now and 
then alighting upon the ground, and, with drooping and quivering 
wings, running gracefully, in the manner of a Robin, then flying up 
to a low branch, and, after facing about, repeating the same maneu¬ 
vers —evidently trying to entice us away from the spot” (1877, p. 408). 
After raising its young in the high mountains, the Solitaire descends 
to the junipers, where it molts—one was found in the midst of its 
molt on September 19—surrounded by conveniently abundant juniper 
berries. 
In going down from the spruces and pines into the junipers on 
our way down the Gallinas Mountains early in October, 1904, and in 
