Sparrow WESTERN BIRDS 



patch below that on side of head, its white throat edged 

 with black stripes. The rest of upper parts are in spar- 

 row-like markings, but one hardly considers them so 

 pronounced as the other plumage. 



In California these birds are residents in most of 

 their range, and most welcome they, indeed, are. Their 

 nests are placed on the ground, in bushes, or trees as 

 fancy dictates, dried grasses, fibers, rootlets and similar 

 material being used. 



These birds are indeed joys to the student, for they 

 are easy to identify, not alone by their plumage, but 

 their song, also, gives them away. It is a rich, clear, 

 measured song which Ridgway has compared to a series 

 of chants. Sometimes it is loud and again it is so low 

 that the bird seems to be singing for his own amusement. 

 But the thing which differentiates it is the peculiar little 

 purring noise, a sort of muffled trill, which the bird is 

 fcever dragging into his otherwise sweet performance. 

 The effect produced by a tree full of singers is, indeed, 

 unique. 



GENUS ZONOTRICHIA: WHITE- 

 CROWNED SPARROW. 



White-Crowned Sparrow: Zonotrichia leucophrys 

 leucophrys. 



FAMILY— FINCHES, SPARROWS, ETC. 



The thought of the White-crowned Sparrow brings to 

 the bird student nothing but pleasant memories of a 

 bird charmingly garbed and sweet of voice. To be sure 

 he is a migrant, only, in most parts of our country, spend- 

 ing his winters from southern Arizona, southern Kansas, 

 and the Ohio Valley, south, and nesting, for the most 

 part, in the high mountains of the far north. We are 



172 



