152 THE SOOTY FOX SPARROW. 



No. 62. 



SOOTY FOX SPARROW. 



A. O. U. No. 585a (part). Passerella iliaca fiiliginosa Ridgway. 



Description. — .Idiilts: Upperparts, sides of head, neck, and lateral under- 

 parts nearly nniform dark brown (sepia brown — "sooty" not inappropriate), 

 warming slightly upon exposed surfaces of wings and upon rump and outer 

 edges of rectrices ; below white save for under tail-coverts, which have clear 

 huffy wash, everywhere save on middle belh' heavily marked with large, chiefly 

 triangular, spots of the color of back or darker — spotting heaviest on breast 

 where nearly confluent. Bill black above shading on sides into yellow of lower 

 mandible; feet pale ruddy brown or wine-color. Length (of a single fresh 

 specimen) 7.45 (191.7) ; wing ( av. ) 3.21 (81.5) ; tail 2.91 (y/) ; bill .48 (12.2) ; 

 tarsus 1.02 (25.9). 



Recognition Marks. — Sparrow to Chewink size; uniform sooty brown col- 

 oration of head and u])perparts ; heavily spotted below with sepia or blackish ; 

 darker above and more heavily spotted below than any migrant form of the 

 P. i. iiualascliciisis group. 



Nesting. — Nest: a bulky structure with a broad, flat brim, of mosses, grasses, 

 twigs, woody fibers, weed-stalks, often heavily lined with fine dry grass of 

 contrasting color and witli an inner mat of fur, hair or feathers ; placed at 

 moderate heights in thickets or saplings ; measures externally 6 inches across 

 by 3 deep, internally 23/^ across by 1% deep. Eggs: 4. greenish blue, spotted, 

 or spotted and clouded, with reddish brown. Av. size, .94 x .68 (23.8x17.3). 

 Season: May-July; two broods. 



General Range. — Summer resident in coast region of British Columbia and 

 northwestern \\'asliington ; in winter south along the coast to San Francisco. 



Range in Washington. — Breeding on the San Juan Islands and upon the 

 northern and western shores of the Olympic Peninsula ; not uncommon migrant 

 on Puget Sound. 



Authorities. — ( ?) Baird, Rep. Pac, etc., 489 part; ( ?) Cooper and Suckley 

 Rep. Pac, etc., 204 part; ( ?) Sclater Cat. Am. Birds, 1862, 119 part (Simiahmoo 

 [sic]) ; Ridgway, Auk, XVI. Jan. 1899, 36 (Neah Bay). Kb. E. 



Specimens. — Prov. BN. E. 



THE mystery of the Fox Sparrow clears a little as we move northward 

 on Puget Sound, and may even resolve itself one day as we spend a lazy 

 July in camp on one of the San Juan islands. We are puzzled, as the tent 

 pegs are being driven, by certain sprightly songs bursting out now here, now 

 there, from the copse. We labor under a sence of avian surveillance as we 

 gather fuel from the beach, but the songs are too joyous and limpid to make 

 precise connections with anything in previous experience. It is not till the 

 cool of the evening, when we seek the spring, back in the depths of the 

 thicket, that we come upon a fair birdmaiden slyly regaling lierself upon a 



