166 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 233 



Beaurre on June 8, 1907. The latter set is now in the Koyal Ontario 

 Museum of Zoology at Toronto. 



At Potsdam in northern New York, Keclney (1869, p. 550) found 

 on May 15, 1868, the two-storied nest of a white-crowned sparrow 

 containing the single egg of a cowbird under the second nest floor 

 plus 2 more cowbird eggs and 3 sparrow eggs in the new nest above. 

 These were being incubated by the sparrow when found ; on blowing, 

 they proved to be well advanced in incubation. 



Barnes (1918, p. 109) recorded a set of white-crowned sparrow 

 eggs with 1 of the cowbird, but, unfortunately, he gave neither date 

 nor locality. 



The Idaho and Alberta records relate to the race oriantha of the 

 sparrow and artemisiae of the cowbird; the New York instance, to 

 typical leucophrys and to typical aier. 



White-throated Sparrow 



Zonotrichia albicollis (Gmelin) 



The white-throated sparrow is generally an infrequent host of 

 the brown-headed cowbird, but in southern Quebec it appears to be 

 a regular and not uncommon victim. In the course of nearly 60 

 years of field observation, TerriU (1961, p. 10) found the astonishing 

 number of 507 nests of this sparrow within a limited area of southern 

 Quebec; of these, 20, or 4 percent, had been parasitized by the cow- 

 bird. While the percentage of parasitism was relatively small, the 

 total number of observed cases of parasitism is slightly more than 

 aU the other reported instances I have been able to gather. (During 

 the same long period of years, Terrill found 481 nests of the song 

 sparrow, of which 62, or 12.7 percent, contained eggs of the cowbird.) 

 Of the 20 most frequently victimized host species in that area, only 

 the goldfinch was less often victimized (7 nests, out of 318 examined, 

 or 2.2 percent). 



All in all, some 36 records have come to my notice. Apart from 

 southern Quebec, the white-throated sparrow has been found to be 

 victimized in Itaska County, Minnesota, in Michigan, by A. R. 

 Cahn (1920, p. 116; 1918, p. 497), and in Wisconsin, by Robbins 

 (1949). Rowan (1922, p. 229) found this sparrow rearing a young 

 cowbird at Indian Bay, Manitoba. Snyder and Logier (1930, pp. 

 194-195) found a parasitized nest in York County, Ontario. Har- 

 rington and Beaupre collected other parasitized nests in Ontario, 

 which are now in the Royal Ontario Museum. J. D. Carter (1906, 

 p. 32) reported a nest in Monroe County, Pennsylvania. Hooper 

 and Hooper (1954) noted a fledgling cowbird being fed by a white- 

 throated sparrow in the Somme district, Saskatchewan. T. E. Ran- 



