590 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
In the spring migration in Alaska, when several flocks came into 
the gardens about Juneau and stayed about town for a week, Alfred 
Bailey commented that “they appear awkward as they stalk over the 
snow, but they are very inconspicuous in dried grass” (1927, p. 363). 
During their migrations in Montana, Mr. E. S. Cameron noted, 
“they are fond of following the plow and seeking their food in the 
freshly turned up earth” (1907-1908, p. 51). On the prairie, in fall, they 
associate with horned larks and longspurs, when they can always be 
recognized by their buff, streaked undetparts. 
In Colorado the hardy birds have been seen bathing during a snow¬ 
storm, and their breeding grounds are high on the mountains. A nest 
found by Mr. Ligon just begun on June 15, 1924, was near the top of 
Wheeler Peak, under overhanging grass, within six inches of a huge 
snowdrift. 
In the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, in the summer of 1903, they were 
the common Arctic-Alpine mountain top birds, being found from a little 
below timberline almost to the tops of the highest peaks. On July 
28, on the broad, grassy side of a ridge, at 12,000 feet, we found a little 
band of them evidently at home on their breeding grounds, as some were 
carrying food. On August 13, one of the family guardians was seen 
pursuing a Sparrow Hawk above the top of Pecos Baldy, at 12,600 feet. 
On Wheeler Peak, in the summer of 1904, we found them most 
abundant and feeding young in a glacial scoop above a moraine at 
12,700 feet. Here, two short brooks that trickled down through the 
grass from the peaks afforded the only water that we found above 
timberline, and the basin gave protection from the winds that swept 
the open slopes, which even the wind-loving Anthus might appreciate 
when rearing a brood. A number of pairs were living in this immediate 
neighborhood. On July 26, young apparently full grown were still 
fluttering their wings to be fed. On another part of the peak above 
timberline, on July 22, our Taos Indian camp man, Sun-Elk, flushed a 
small bird from the ground, and found, hidden in the grass, a nest 
with four of the characteristic broion eggs. He did not notice what the 
bird was like, but Pipits, Rosy Finches, and the Southern White¬ 
tailed Ptarmigan are the only birds breeding at such altitudes, and the 
Pipit is the only one having brown eggs. 
In the height of the breeding season, as Mr. Ligon says, the males 
are constantly singing, flying upward as they utter their interesting 
notes, then dropping back silently to some prominent stone or bowlder— 
sometimes projecting above the snowdrifts—sitting quietly for a time 
and then repeating the performance. When we first climbed Pecos 
Baldy, on July 20, we heard the flight song a number of times, but 
after that, although we visited the Anthus basin three times more and 
