GOLDEN-CROWNED SPARROW 1359 



of annuals, the bills of the birds are quite characteristically gummed 

 up with dried green stuff." 



Joseph Maillard (1926) found the golden-crowns greatly preferred 

 newly-sprouted weed seeds, up after a heavy October rain, to the 

 grain bait spread before a trap. R. P. Parsons writes me in a letter 

 from Carmel, Calif., "They have a most notable and special pref- 

 erence for newly planted lawns. They did not bother the seeds, 

 but when it had sprouted and was 2 to 3 days above the surface, they 

 descended on the new lawn in hordes." 



Harold W. Clark (1930) found them feeding on small, black, bitter 

 olives fallen from the trees in his yard after a heavy February frost. 

 John McB. Robertson (1931) says they eat the plentiful seeds of 

 Eucalyptus globulus. Robert S. Woods (1932) noted they are es- 

 pecially fond of young plants of the cabbage family and of beets and 

 peas, but ignore carrots; also that they eat seeds of the naturalized 

 tree tobacco (Nicotiana glauca). 



Amelia S. Allen (1943) noted them in Berkeley. Calif., among the 

 birds coming from the shrubbery to feed on swarms of winged termites 

 that dropped to the pavement and shed their wings in early November. 

 Peyton wrote me that on their nesting ground in Sustina Canyon the 

 birds were eating mosquitoes. While there is little in the literature 

 on their food habits in the north in summer, it is highly probable that, 

 like the other Zonotrichias, they consume fair quantities of insects 

 during the nesting season, and also feed them to their young. Gab- 

 rielson and Lincoln (1959) write that in Alaska "Gabrielson has seen 

 them in company with other sparrows feeding on weed seeds about 

 the edges of cultivated fields and in villages. He has also seen them 

 in the tundra country feeding close to the alder patches on crowberries 

 and other small fruits found in this habitat. On one or two occasions 

 he has noted birds with insects in their bills obviously carrying food 

 to their young, and it is probable that they regularly take such insect 

 life as is available in the vicinity of their nests." 



Voice. — The golden-crown's characteristic song is composed of 

 three clearly whistled notes descending in a minor key and suggesting 

 the words "Oh, dear me." To the miners carrying their packs along 

 the Alaska gold trails the constantly repeated plaintive notes seemed 

 to say "I'm so weary," and they nicknamed the singer "Weary 

 Willy." Its habit of repeating its notes over and over again on 

 dark days preceding rain has also earned it the name of "rain bird." 



Frank N. Bassett (1920) gives the following musician's notation of 

 the song: "There seems to be one song which is typical of the species, 

 but occasionally it is transposed into other keys, and less frequently 

 there are variations in it. * * * the most frequently heard song, out- 

 numbering all the variations together. It begins on F [in the third 



