HARRIS' SPARROW 1249 



ZONOTRICHIA QUERULA (Nuttall) 



Harris' Sparrow 



PLATE 68 



Contributed by A. Marguerite Baumgartner 



Habits 



It was on a crisp June day in 1933 among the stunted spruces and 

 the reindeer moss of the timberline at Churchill on Hudson Bay 

 that I made the acquaintance of my first Harris' sparrow. I was 

 captivated at once by the bold black hood and pink bill, the plaintive, 

 melodious, two-toned whistle, and the shy, gentle ways of this large 

 handsome sparrow of the middle west. A bird of mystery, I was in 

 the heart of its breeding grounds where that veteran explorer, Edward 

 A. Preble, had discovered young just out of the nest in 1900, and 

 where George M. Sutton had found and described the eggs for the 

 first time in 1930. By 1933 not a dozen men had seen the nest and 

 beautiful speckled blue-green eggs of these elusive creatures. 



It was a great satisfaction to renew their acquaintance in 1939 

 when we moved to the heart of their winter range in Oklahoma. 

 Although they migrate through the plains states in enormous numbers 

 and have been banded by the thousands in spring and fall, they are 

 still birds of mystery. Only a handful have been studied through a 

 winter, and none over a period of years. Perhaps it was a designing 

 fate, certainly a happy coincidence, that led us after several years in 

 town, to establish our permanent home on an acreage near Stillwater 

 where Harris' sparrows shared our lawn and picnic place, our weedy 

 chicken yard, and the brushy ravine that wound through our little 

 pasture. These birds of mystery became our closest neighbors, 

 constant guests at our winter feeding trays, and regular visitors to 

 our banding traps. 



From its earliest history Harris' Sparrow has been surrounded by 

 an aura of excitement and drama. Because its distribution is re- 

 stricted to the center of the continent, not until 1834 did the eager 

 eyes of science view it for the first time. Harry Harris (1919) relates 

 in fascinating detail how two separate parties of explorers discovered 

 the species within two weeks and a few miles of one another. On an 

 expedition headed westward across Missouri with John K. Townsend, 

 Thomas Nuttall (1840) collected a bird on Apr. 28, 1834, that ho 

 subsequently named the "Mourning Finch," FringUla querula. On 

 May 13th the same year, Maximilian, Prince of Wied (1841), returning 

 from an exploration of the upper Missouri River, likewise encountered 

 the migrating flocks of these large handsome sparrows in southeastern 



