42 
U. S. P. E. E. EXP. AND SUEYEYS—EOUTE TO CALIFOENIA. 
This bird, though well known as a Mexican species, is now for the first time added to the 
fauna of California. I first discovered it on the desert extending between the Tejon pass and 
the Mohave river, where its purse-shaped nest, placed on the branches of the cactus, at no great 
height from the ground, is frequently to he met with. The nest, composed of grasses and 
lined with feathers, has an entrance in the form of a covered passage, varying from six to ten 
inches in length. The eggs, six in number, are of a delicate salmon color, very pale, and often 
so thickly speckled with ash and darker salmon colored spots as to give a rich cast to the whole 
surface of the egg. I sometimes stopped to open these nests, as the feathers with which they 
were lined often indicated that certain species of birds were to be found in their neighborhood. 
The naturalist, thus put on the alert, will more readily obtain such of those species as may 
have escaped his eye. In this manner I discovered the uttermost western range of the blue 
partridge, (<Callipepla squamata, Vigors.) I obtained, at a later period, other specimens of this 
wren in the valley of the San Fernando Mission, in San Bernardino valley, in the vicinity of 
Fort Yuma, and finally in Texas, in certain portions of which it is by no means rare. Its 
habits are like those of the wrens, creeping into holes and under the leaves and grass in 
search of insects. If wounded only it is easily lost, running or fluttering to a ground squirrel’s 
hole, or any other cavity, where it takes refuge. On the Mohave desert, having winged one 
of these birds, it was discovered only on lifting a hollow log in which it had taken shelter and 
throwing it several times violently on the ground, when it struggled out in vain endeavors to 
escape. 
LOPHOPHANES INORNATUS, G a mb el .—Plain Chicadee. 
Pants inornalus, Gambel, Proceed. Acad. N. Scien. Phil. vol. II, p. 265.— Ib. Journal Ac. N. S. Phil. 2d series, 
vol. I, p. 35, pi. 8, fig. 2. 
Lophophanes inornalus, Baird, Gen. Eep. IX, 386. 
Abundant throughout the country, and possessing an almost endless variety of notes. 
PARUS RUFESCENS, Towns.—Chestnut-hacked Titmouse or Chicadee. 
Parus mfescens, Towns. Journ. Acad. N. Scien. Phil. vol. VII, p. 190.— Aud. B. of A. Oct. vol. II, p. 158, pi. 129.— 
Ib. Fol. pi. 353, figs. 1 and 2. 
This bird and its nestlings I found in the month of July frequenting the stunted oaks and 
hushes covering the sand hills around San Francisco, where it appears not to he rare. I never 
saw it in any other part of California, though said by Mr. Audubon to he an abundant species 
in Oregon and on the Columbia river. 
PARUS MONTAN US, Gambel.—Rocky Mountain Chicadee. 
Parus montanus, Gambel, Proceed. Acad. N. Scien. Phil. vol. I, p. 259.— Ib. Journal Ac. N. S. Phil. 2d series, 
vol. I, p. 35, pi. 8, fig. 1. 
Dr. Gambel first brought from California a single specimen of this bird, which he presented 
to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, but which by some mishap was lost soon after 
the figure had been drawn for the journal of that institution. In 1851 I met with two small 
flocks of these birds in company with the Psaltria minima , on the mountains surrounding the 
volcano, in the southern mines, and again during the late survey on the summit of the Tejon 
Pass, associated with several species of Sylvicola, which were then migrating south. In its 
movements it is restless, diligently gleaning its food, consisting of insects, in the moss and 
