710 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
Near the Pueblo of Taos, where we found a Green-tail brooding 
eggs on a sagebrush nest overgrown with clematis, at our approach 
she would drop from the nest and skulk off through the sagebrush so 
that it was almost impossible to see her. But a mother with young 
out of the nest, surprised by Doctor Taylor, came running out toward 
him from a chinquapin thicket dragging her wings and limping, adding 
to the effect “by uttering a shrill note of pain” (1912, p. 403). 
Although usually seen in the sagebrush or chaparral at a distance 
from houses, the shy Green-tails become tame and friendly when 
attracted by food. This was shown strikingly by Mr. and Mrs. 
Eugene Law, who, when banding birds in the mountains in southern 
California, by throwing out food soon experienced some of the “intimate 
pleasures of bird banding.” “Crumbs and nut meats, which we 
scattered about,” Mr. Law says, “soon began to assemble Green¬ 
tailed Towhees. 
“The first to appear was a youngster, in juvenal garb but grown, 
and with it an older bird of the year, already in post-juvenal plumage. 
As the days passed three adults came along, one of them wearing an 
old band. All five became competitors for the food which we kept 
constantly ready for them, the adults dominating the immatures 
mercilessly. 
“All soon learned that a swinging arm meant a tossed crumb, and 
one or more birds invariably dashed for a thrown crumb, but never 
apparently tried to catch the morsel on the wing. Their sight is 
particularly keen and far, and even a crumb held up for inspection 
was at once detected by the birds from their brush cover some twenty- 
five feet away, and they were alert to start for the morsel the instant 
it was thrown. They often snatched the thrown tidbits from among 
chipmunks (Eutamias speciosus), which appeared stupidly unconscious 
that food had been thrown. The chipmunks soon learned, however, 
that we were favoring the birds and became openly jealous and chased 
the birds around. The latter yielded ground but that was all, and we 
often saw one hopping around comically just in advance of a pursuing 
chipmunk. Once I saw a towhee stand its ground, with lowered head, 
and then the chipmunk yielded. 
“Quite to our surprise, when we had nuts suspended on strings to 
test the jumping limit of the chipmunks, adult towhees, never more 
than one in action at a time, possibly only the same individual at all 
times, often jumped up and caught at the nut kernel thirteen inches 
from the ground, and occasionally one hung there by its beak, flopping 
the body about, ludicrously like a fish just pulled from the water. 
In no case did we detect the bird actually dislodging the nut. As 
soon as the adults had tasted English walnut meat they lost their 
