1292 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part 3 



ZONOTRICHIA LEUCOPHRYS NUTTALLI Ridgway 



Nuttall's White-crowned Sparrow* 



PLATE 69 



Contributed by Barbara Blanchard DeWolfe** 



Habits 



White-crowned sparrows are among the best known and most 

 widely distributed passerine birds of North America. They live close 

 to man, and their original range may well have been extended as a 

 result of man's activities, for the combination of bare ground, grass, 

 and dense shrubbery they prefer is often concomitant to road- 

 building, lumbering, farming, or burning. White-crowned sparrows 

 are easily trapped in migration and on the wintering grounds, and 

 large numbers are banded each year. 



The breeding range of the species' western populations extends 

 from sea level to over 11,000 feet and spans some 3,000 miles both 

 north to south and east to west, from latitude 70 °N. on the Arctic 

 slope of the Brooks Range to latitude 34°N. at Gaviota, Calif, and 

 from longitude 105°W. in central Colorado to longitude 168°W. on 

 the Seward Peninsula in Alaska. Within this large geographic area 

 the species is divided into four races which differ only slightly in color 

 pattern, shade of plumage, and other morphological characters, but 

 which vary markedly as to strength of migratory instinct and the 

 timing of the breeding cycle. Nuttall's sparrow (Z. I. nuttalli) is 

 permanently resident in the fog belt of California, and begins to nest 

 in March or April, depending on the year. The Puget Sound spar- 



*This account also contains material on Zonotrichia leucophrys gambelii, Z. I. 

 oriantha, and Z. I. pugetensis. 



**The author acknowledges with thanks Grant number 2804 from the Penrose 

 Fund of the American Philosophical Society, which made possible the literature 

 search for data on range, migration, and nesting cycle. Thanks are due F. S. L. 

 Williamson, who contributed unpublished data on clutch size in Z. I. gambelii 

 from the Terrestrial Avifauna Study, Project Chariot of the Atomic Energy 

 Commission, and L. H. Walkinshaw, who contributed data on behavior, nesting, 

 and clutch size in this race. Richard C. Banks contributed data on distribution. 



The author also wishes to thank Barbara Lilley Mooney, who carried out the 

 literature search, Priscilla Phillips, whose banding records and observations made 

 possible the writing of the sections on fall and winter for Z. I. gambelii, and Anne 

 Hinshaw Wing, whose analysis of Gambel's sparrow song appears in the text. 

 Many ornithologists contributed unpublished data through personal communica- 

 tions, which are acknowledged in the text. 



The original field data supplied by the author were obtained under grants from 

 the National Science Foundation, Society of the Sigma Xi, American Philosoph- 

 ical Society, and from the Committee on Research, University of California, 

 Santa Barbara. 



