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National Geographic : 1936 Apr
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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE Crissal Thrasher (Toxostoma dorsale dorsale) From Utah to Baja California and from southeastern California to western Texas is the homeland of the crissal thrasher (see Color Plate V). This is an exceedingly shy bird. Field observers often have great difficulty in see ing one while it is singing, for if the song ster glimpses an approaching intruder it dives instantly to cover and is not readily found again. If, by good fortune, one finds a crissal at close range, it may be identified by the light-yellow eyes, which are not possessed by any of the other thrashers of the same locality. The crissal should be sought in the mes quite thickets bordering streams and ar royos. The nest is made of thorny twigs and lined with grasses, and is usually placed in a thorn bush. The three or four eggs are light green without spots or markings. Leconte's Thrasher (Toxostoma lecontei lecontei) This bird and its subspecies, the desert thrasher (T. 1. arenicola), are very light gray and their colors blend so perfectly with the sands over which they race that when quiet for a moment they are practically invisible (see Color Plate V). They are past masters in the art of skulk ing through the cactus and creosote bushes and avoiding detection. When flying they usually rise only a few inches from the ground. Men on horseback, trying to run them down, have found it difficult to get them to rise in the air and fly away like other birds. In their efforts to escape, the thrashers prefer the speed of their legs and their ability to dodge behind bushes. The nest is often placed in the cholla cactus, the long spines and easily detached joints of which provide a most effective de fense against marauding animals. Leconte's thrasher may be found in desert growths of southeastern California, southern Nevada, and Utah, also in Ari zona and northern Baja California. Purple Martin (Progne subis) Purple martins are sociable birds with a fondness for the company of their own kind, and where nesting sites for several pairs are available a colony is soon estab lished. They prefer to live about the homes of man, and in most communities gladly accept the hospitality of those who will put up nesting boxes for them (see Color Plate VI and text, page 528). Sometimes boxes with 100 or 200 apart ments are erected for their use. They will accept also hollowed-out gourds suspended from crossbars nailed to a pole (see illustra tion, page 526). In unsettled regions they will nest in cliffs or in hollows of trees. Not long ago more than 300 were estimated to be breeding among the bowlder piles on Spirit Lake, Minnesota. Although breeding as far north as the southern tier of Canadian Provinces and even Alaska, they are most abundant in the Southern States. In the construction of nests, weeds and straw are used, as well as other vegetation, feathers, and even rags. Often mud is employed. I have examined nests, the linings of which were composed wholly of the dead, smooth leaves of the live oak, which some times covered the eggs when the gourds containing them were tossed about in the summer wind. In some sections two or more broods are raised in a year. The birds are very noisy about their nests, and the sweet twittering carol adds much to the avian chorus about the homes of planters and innumerable negro cabins in the pine-woods country. Martins winter in Brazil. Northern Cliff Swallow (Petrochelidon albifrons albifrons) Cliff swallows arrive in the District of Columbia about April 10, in Minnesota be tween April 13 and May 6, and at the northern limits along the edge of the Arctic at a still later date. Typically swallowlike, they breed in col onies. Their nests are made of little mud pellets, carried one at a time. Many of the nests are walled about in such a way that an opening only large enough to admit the bird is left. Sometimes a bottlelike neck forms the doorway (see page 522). The side of a building, well up under the edge of an overhanging roof, is a favor ite nesting place. For this reason the birds are often known as "eave swallows" (see Color Plate VI). Although found locally all over most of North America, except Florida and the Rio Grande Valley, they are much more nu merous in some regions. In the Central States, for some obscure reason, their num bers have much diminished during the last 542
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