1296 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 pakt 3 



beats away from cover. The shrubbery must be extensive enough to 

 conceal a nest and the devious route the female takes to and from it, 

 but not so unbroken in extent as to require a long flight to reach open 

 ground. Extensive areas of grass, bare ground, and shrubbery 

 existing side by side in solid masses with abrupt linear interfaces 

 do not constitute typical white-crowned sparrow country. What is 

 most typical of a territory is its patchy appearance, because of the 

 interstitial invasion of the open ground by shrubbery. 



Such subtle characteristics of a landscape are easy to sense, but 

 hard to describe. Yet, owing to the presence of the same characteristic 

 elements with, of course, almost infinite local variations, the territories 

 of white-crowned sparrows throughout western North America look 

 much alike. An example of this is the similarity in appearance, or 

 perhaps in "mood," of the landscapes at Desolation Lake in the high 

 Sierras and at Point Lobos on the Monterey peninsula, both of which 

 support breeding populations of white-crowned sparrows. In June 

 of 1960 I found male white-crowned sparrows of the race oriantha 

 spaced out and singing regularly along the edge of Desolation Lake 

 in the Wilderness Area above and west of Lake Tahoe. I assume they 

 were either nesting or about to nest there. At Point Lobos on the 

 shore of the Pacific Ocean near Monterey, Calif., Nuttall's sparrows 

 nest abundantly. 



In spite of the obvious differences in the details of the two land- 

 scapes, the elements characteristic of white-crowned sparrow terri- 

 tories are present in both and confer on the two localities a common 

 stamp. The high mountain lake is bordered by masses of bare granite 

 with gnarled juniper trees and dwarfed pines. Pack trails meander 

 along the edge of the lake, and tufts of grass and patches of alpine 

 flowers grow in the lee of granite boulders. The same elements of a 

 large body of water, bare ground, shrubbery, and grass comprise the 

 landscape at Point Lobos. Here a similar scene is produced by the 

 juxtaposition of ocean, steep granite cliffs, and wind-racked Monterey 

 cypress. The grass is more extensive and the flowers more conspic- 

 uous, but the impression conveyed to me by both landscapes is essen- 

 tially the same, that of a wind-swept barren land with warped trees, 

 and a lee with sheltered spots where grass and flowers grow. 



A second example of the similarity of white-crowned sparrow 

 territories in widely separated areas is found in Nuttall's sparrow 

 country near coastal farm lands of California and in Gambel's sparrow 

 country on the outskirts of Fairbanks, Alaska. In the summer of 

 1956 I found Nuttall's sparrows breeding on the seaward edge of a 

 farm in San Luis Obispo County. Their territories included both 

 cultivated and wild land. They foraged in a pasture, used the fence 

 posts for singing perches, and the native shrubbery beyond the 



