THE LINCOLN SPARROW. 



147 



our "persecution." Is it any wonder that the Lincohi Sparrow is so Httle 

 known to fame? 



While rated a regular summer resident of British America and Alaska, 

 Lincoln's Sparrow has also been found breeding in the mountains of eastern 

 Oregon, California, Utah, and Colorado. It ought, therefore to occur in 

 Washington : but we have only to shrug our shoulders and say with the 

 lawyer, noii est iui'ditiis. Indeed, the only positive record we have of the 

 bird's occurrence at any season is that of a specimen taken by A. Gordon 

 Bowles, Jr., in W^right's Park, Tacoma, May 22, iqo6. 



So much penned in good 

 faith in April, 1908. In 

 June of the same year the 

 good fairy of the bird-man 

 piloted him to a spot where 

 the Lincoln Sparrows were. 

 so numerously and so thor- 

 oly at home, that he began 

 to wonder whether he 

 might not have been dream- 

 ing after all for the past 

 quarter of a century. Ten 

 or a dozen pairs were 

 foutid occupying the well- 

 known swamp at Longmire's 

 Springs. On the 30th of 

 June they were much more 

 in evidence than the Rusty 

 Song Sparrows, which occu- 

 pied the same grassy fast- 

 nesses; and altho the 

 females were not done wait- 

 ing on overgrown babies, 

 the males were loudly urg- 

 ing their second suits. 



The song of the Lincoln 

 Sparrow is of a distinctly musical order, being gushing, vivacious, and 

 wren-like in quality, rather than lisping and wooden, like so many of our 

 sparrow songs. Indeed, the bird shows a much stronger relationship in 

 song to the Purple Finch than to its immediate congeners, the Song 

 Sparrows. The principal strain is gurgling, rolling, and spontaneous, and 

 the bird has ever the trick of adding two or three inconsequential notes at 

 the end of his ditty, quite in approved Purple Finch fashion. "Liiikit/^, 



Taken at 



Longmire^s 



Springs. 





LINCOLN'S SONG SPARROW. 



ALLAN BROOKS AFTER PHOTO BY THE AUTHOR. 



