BIRDS OF NEW YORK 3OI 



for several weeks and he carefully identified them, though no specimens 

 were taken. The nest and eggs were also discovered, and the young birds 

 were successfully reared. This is the first record of its nesting in New York 

 State, although I have expected every year to find that it had come into 

 this region, as it already has appeared in northern and eastern Ohio and 

 in western Pennsylvania, evidently extending its range gradually from 

 the Mississippi valley, as the Prairie horned lark and Migrant shrike have 

 done since the forests of western New York were cleared away. 



Haunts and habits. The Lark sparrow is a grassland bird, and may 

 become established in New York, perhaps some day becoming one of our 

 common sparrows. The nest is built on the ground, or near it in a thick 

 bush, composed of grasses, rootlets and long hairs, very much like the nests 

 of our ether ground sparrows. The eggs are from 3 to 5, pinkish white 

 in ground color, spotted and splashed with blackish brown; average size 

 .80 by .60 inches. 



Zonotrichia leucophrys leucophrys (J. R. Forster) 

 White-crowned Sparrow 



Plate 82 



Ember iza leucophrys Forster. Philos. Trans. 1772. 62 : 426 

 Fringilla leucophrys DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt. 2, p. 153, fig. 139 

 Zonotrichia leucophrys leucophreys A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 



1910. p. 261. No. 5S4 



zonotrichia, Gr., £wviq, band, and Tpi^ta?, hairy one, alluding to the banded stripes 

 on the head; leucophrys, Gr., white eyebrow 



Description. Crown with a broad central stripe of white bordered by 

 2 deep black stripes reaching from the base of the bill to the occiput; side 

 of the head with a stripe of -white beginning just above the eye and reaching 

 backward, joining the central crown stripe on the occiput; black stripe passing 

 through the eve and belotv the white stripe just mentioned back to the side 

 of the neck. Thus from the eye over the crown there are 4 stripes of black 

 and 3 of white, making the head of this bird more conspicuously black 

 and white striped than that of any other native species. Side of the head 

 and neck ashy gray; throat lighter, almost white; the breast light gray fading 

 on the abdomen to white; flanks huffy brown; under tail coverts buffy; 

 back gray streaked with chestnut-brown and grayish white; rump and upper 



