The series of skins embraces no less than twenty-two examples, and very fully illustrates all the variations of age and season. Among the number are several in the hitherto undescribed first plumage. The
youngest of these (No. 480, ♂?, Camp Lowell, June 2), although well feathered, has the wings and tail undeveloped, and was taken from the nest. Its entire upper plumage is rusty brown with a chestnut tinge which deepens on the rump and outer webs of the secondaries to decided chestnut brown. The general coloring of the under parts is pale fulvous with a strong tinge of rusty chestnut across the breast, along the sides, and over the anal region and crissum. The breast is obsoletely spotted, but the plumage elsewhere, both above and below, is entirely immaculate. An older bird (No. 577, Camp Lowell, June 23) with the wings and tail fully grown out, differs in having the back (excepting a narrow anterior space bordering on the nape), with the exposed webs and coverts of the wings, and a broad tipping on the tail feathers, bright rusty;—while in a third of about the same age (No. 614, ♂, Camp Lowell, June 28), the rusty color, although paler, is uniformly distributed over the entire upper surface save upon the wings and tail feathers, which are only edged and tipped with that color. This last example is so faintly marked beneath that the plumage at first sight appears immaculate; but a closer inspection reveals a few spots here and there among the central feathers of the breast. A fourth (No. 487, Camp Lowell, June 3), although apparently no older, has the breast and sides spotted more sharply than in any of the adults, while the rusty tinge above is chiefly confined to the rump, posterior half of the back, and the outer webs of the wing feathers.
Several of these young birds are so nearly similar to specimens of H. bendirei in corresponding stages that they can be separated only with great difficulty. The stouter bill and entirely black lower mandible of palmeri may, however, always be depended upon as distinguishing characters; and, moreover, the pectoral spotting of bendirei is usually (but not invariably) finer and sharper, and the rusty tinge above paler and less extended.
The adults present a good deal of variation, most of which is apparently seasonal. Winter specimens have the lower abdomen, with the anal region and crissum, rich rusty-fulvous, while the markings beneath are similar in character to those of true curvirostris, and the spots equally distinct, numerous and widely distributed. With the advance of the season, and the consequent wear and tear of the plumage, the spots gradually fade or disappear. Indeed some of the June specimens are absolutely immaculate beneath, although most of them, like Mr. Ridgway’s types, have a few faint markings on the abdomen. In this condition the general coloring is also paler and grayer, and the fulvous of the crissum and neighboring parts often entirely wanting.
But although the evidence of this series tends to demolish several of the characters upon which palmeri has been based, enough remain to separate it from its ally the true curvirostris of Mexico and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. The best of these, perhaps, is to be found in the different marking of the tail feathers. In curvirostris the three outer pairs are broadly tipped with pure white which, on the inner web, extends twice as deep, basally, as on the outer one, and has its boundaries everywhere sharply defined; in palmeri the outer rectrices are, at the most, barely tipped with pale brown, which either extends squarely across both webs, or fades insensibly into the darker color of the feather. The bill of palmeri, also, is usually longer and more curved than that of curvirostris.
8. Harporhynchus lecontei Bonap. Leconte’s Thrasher.—The great rarity of Leconte’s Thrasher, even in the heart of the desolate regions where alone it has so far been found, is still further attested by Mr. Stephens’ experience during the past season, for although he searched for it carefully in all suitable places between Camp Lowell and Riverside (California), he met with only two individuals. These occurred about fifteen miles west of Maricopa, Arizona, in a locality which the accompanying notes describe as follows: “Near the middle of ‘Forty-five-mile Desert,’ between Maricopa Wells and Gila Bend. No chollas or other cactuses in the immediate neighborhood, but some giant cactuses about a mile away in the hills; a few mesquites and much scattering low brush in the vicinity; nearest water twenty miles away.”
Dr. Cooper is said to have found the species “rather common” in the desert between Fort Mohave and the San Bernardino Mountains, California, but Mr. Stephens has thrice traversed this route without seeing a single specimen. In a recent number[[42]] of the American Naturalist, however, Mr. E. Holterhoff, Jr., speaks of seeing the bird “on the Colorado desert, at a station called Flowing Wells,” and gives an interesting description of a nest and set of eggs taken there. “The nest was placed in a palo verde tree, and was a very bulky affair, measuring externally nine inches in depth and six in width; the hollow of the nest was fully three inches in depth. It was so awkwardly situated that much of the base of the nest had evidently been filled in to firmly support the structure. The two eggs were somewhat smaller than those of H. redivivus, lighter in color, and marked all over with finer reddish spots, thicker at the larger end.”
I am inclined to consider the Maricopa specimens above referred to as adults, although this is not so clear in the case of the male, portions of whose plumage suggest that of a young bird. Both are in worn, ragged condition, but there is no indication of any moult, save upon the wings and tail, where many of the feathers have been replaced by new ones which are conspicuous among the others by their fresher coloring.
On a former occasion[[43]] I urged the specific distinctness of this Thrasher from H. redivivus, and to this conviction I still hold, although a comparison of additional specimens of both species inclines me to believe with Dr. Coues that Leconte’s Thrasher is, on the whole, more nearly related to redivivus than to any other United States form.
616, ♂ ad., near Maricopa Wells, July 5. Length, 10.80; extent, 12.30; wing, 3.85; tarsus, 1.27; tail, 5.35; culmen (chord), 1.30; bill from nostrils, .91; width below posterior angle of nostrils, .23.