154 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 233 



The one record found for labradorius is a nest with 4 eggs of the 

 sparrow and 1 of the cowbird, collected at Grand Menan, New Bruns- 

 wick, on July 2, 1883, by G. M. Cheney; from him it passed into the 

 J. P. Norris collection. 



Of the race oblitus the following instances may be mentioned. F. S. 

 Hersey collected a parasitized set of eggs at Lake Winnepegosis, 

 Manitoba, on June 2, 1913; this set is now in the Bent collection in 

 the U.S. National Museum. Other cases were recorded by Coues 

 (1878, p. 588) in Montana and North Dakota and by Barger (1940, 

 pp. 91-94) in Wisconsin. 



Of the race nevadensis, mention should be made of two parasitized 

 nests found in Alberta by T. E. Randall in addition to another nest 

 from that area, all recorded by Horsbrugh (1915, p. 688); a number of 

 similar instances in Oregon was given by Jewett (1936, p. 46) and by 

 Gabrielson and Jewett (1940, p. 530) ; in Saskatchewan, by Bent (1908, 

 p. 28) and by Ferry (1910, pp. 199-200). In Utah, Clarence Cottam 

 found a parasitized nest near Utah Lake, four miles west of Provo, on 

 May 17, 1928, and in Colorado a similar instance was found by E. R. 

 Warren (1910, p. 36). 



A notable addition to the available data for the race savanna comes 

 from southern Quebec, where Terrill (1961, p. 10) found 5 para- 

 sitized nests out of a total of 140 occupied nests of this sparrow which 

 he had examined over a period of nearly 60 years of field study. Mid- 

 dleton (in Detroit Audubon Society, 1956, p. 92) found one such case 

 at Mt, Clemens, Alichigan, on June 2, 1954. Older records which 

 should be mentioned here are Snyder and Logier (1930, pp. 194-195) 

 in Ontario, Friedmann (1929, p. 218) in New York, and Vasicek (1935) 

 in Ohio. The eastern race savanna has been known to rear the young 

 cowbird to the fledging stage. 



Even though we now have 28 records and undoubtedly others will 

 be found, it appears safe to say that the savannah sparrow is molested 

 infrequently, that it is not of great importance in the economy of the 

 brown-headed cowbird, and that the parasite is not a serious factor in 

 the welfare of the sparrow. 



Grasshopper Sparrow 



Ammodramus savannarum (Gmelin) 



This secretive denizen of grassy fields is difficult to observe, and, 

 as a result, its nests very seldom are discovered. Three races — 

 pratensis, perpallidus, ammolegus — however, have been found to 

 be parasitized by the brown-headed cowbu'd. The number of records 

 is small, 11 in all, distributed from Manitoba in Canada to the "north- 

 eastern United States," and Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, 

 Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, and Arizona. The race perpallidus is 



