THE KADIAK FOX SPARROW. 149 



malar region white flecked with grayish brown ; under tail-coverts grayish brown 

 centrally, broadly margined with white or buffy white; middle of throat and 

 breast usually with a few small spots of brown ; maxilla dusky on culmen, paler 

 on tomia ; mandible pale colored (yellowish in winter, pinkish or liliaceous in 

 summer) ; iris brown; legs and feet brown" (Ridgway).] 



Description. — "Similar to P. i. uiialaschciisis but much browner and more 

 uniform in color above (back, etc., warm sepia brown instead of grayish brown or 

 brownish gray) ; spots on chest, etc., larger and deeper brown; under tail coverts 

 more strongly tipped with buff" (Ridgway ). Length of adult male (skins) : 6.78 

 (172.5) ; wing 3.30 (83.8) ; tail 2.92 (74.1) ; bill .50 ( 12.7 i ; tarsus 1.02 (25.9). 



Recognition Marks. — Sparrow size; uniform brownish coloration of back; 

 underparts heavily spotted with brown; broicncr than iinalaschcnsis but duller 

 than fo-L^iiscndi: larger than aniicctcns: color of crown unbroken as compared 

 with Rusty Song Sparrow (Mclospica incJodia luorphna), also bird larger. 



General Range. — "Kadiak Island, Alaska, in summer ; in winter south along 

 the coast slope to southern California." 



Range in Washington. — \\'inter resident and migrant west of Cascades. 



Authorities. — Passerella tozvnsendii Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. IX. 1858. 

 p. 489 part I, Whitbeys Id., winter). — Fide Ridgway. 



A singular fatality (or, more strictlv, i^'ant of fatality) has attended our 

 efforts to secure a representative series of migrating Fox Sparrows on Puget 

 Sound. The birds have only revealed themselves in city parks or otherwise in 

 the absence of a gun. It is practically certain that all the Alaskan forms described 

 by ]\Ir. Ridgway occur here regularly in winter and during migrations but so 

 unobtrusive are the birds and so dense the cover afforded that we have been 

 completely baffled in our attempts, and find ourselves obliged, at the last moment, 

 to fall back upon Mr. Ridgway's original descriptions in Birds of North and 

 Middle America, \'ol. I. (p. 389 ff ), and for the use of these we desire again to 

 express our grateful obligations. 



For additional remarks on the Shumagin Fo.x Sparrow {P. i. iinalaschcnsis) 

 and the Yakutat Fox Sparrow (P. /s auncctcnsj see Hypothetical List in Volume 

 II. of this work. 



FIELD identification of the Fox Sparrows by means of binocular.s 

 may not command tlie respect of precise scientists. But there he sat, placid, 

 at twenty feet, in a well-lighted grove on the Xisqually Flats, on the loth 

 day of February, 1906. See; twenty divided by eight (the magnifying 

 power of the glasses ) equals two and a half. At arm's length I held him, 

 wliile I noted that tlie upperparts were dull hair-brown thriiout, not notice- 

 ably brightening on wings and tail but perhaps a shade darker on the crown ; 

 underparts heavily but clearly spotted with a warmer brown — so, obviously 

 and indisputably, neither a Sooty nor a Townsend. Shumagin (P. i. una- 

 laschcnsis) perhaps ; but Ridgway^ enters all Puget Sound winter records 

 as Kadiaks, and we must follow the gleam until we are able to perfect the 

 light of our own little lanterns by the flash of a shot-gun. 



a. Birds of North and Mid. Am., Vol. I., p. 391. 



