1306 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part 3 



fight with her thirty-five-day-old fledgling; the next year I saw this female chase 

 away another of the same age. 



At about this time the young start to wander outside their parents' territory. 

 At least by the time they are forty-eight days old they leave it forever. None, 

 not even those which spent the winter only a few hundred yards away, has ever 

 been seen again in its parents' area. 



Food. — The food of the Pacific coast races of Zonotrichia leucophrys 

 is known chiefly from stomach content analyses made in the early 

 1900s by the Bureau of Biological Survey, Washington, D.C. Data 

 were made available through the courtesy of Clarence Cottam, 

 formerly in charge of Food Habits, Division of Wildlife Research, and 

 by John L. Buckley, Director of Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. 

 These and numerous references to food habits in the literature cited 

 here show the catholicity of taste in this species. 



Analyses of the stomach contents of birds taken in California and 

 designated as "nuttalli" indicate that the predominant food is vegetable 

 material, mostly seeds. (As most of the data are for specimens col- 

 lected before 1928, the fall and winter specimens undoubtedly in- 

 cluded migratory Puget Sound sparrows as well as resident Nuttall's 

 sparrows.) For 90 individuals collected, some from every month of 

 the year, the stomach contents of 52, or 58 percent, were reported as 

 containing only dry vegetable matter. Seeds of Amaranthus, Calen- 

 drina, Erodium, Polygonum, Stellaria, and various grasses are among 

 those listed. The stomachs of the remaining 38 specimens were 

 classified as follows: 19 had vegetable matter plus insect material 

 making up 10 percent or less of the contents; 13 had only fresh vege- 

 table material (flowers, immature fruit buds, fruit pulp) ; 3 had partly 

 fresh and partly dry vegetable material but no insects, and 3 had 

 vegetable material plus insect material constituting 11 percent or 

 more of the stomach contents. The small number of specimens with 

 insect matter in the stomachs, only 22 out of 90, or 24 percent, is 

 surprising, especially as most of the specimens (58, or 64 percent) 

 were collected during the nesting season. 



References in the literature include many observations on seed 

 eating. Sylvester D. Judd (1898) lists Nuttall's sparrow as the most 

 important gregarious sparrow that destroys weeds. He reports finding 

 in a Nuttall's sparrow stomach 300 seeds of amaranth, and in another 

 300 seeds of lamb's quarters (Chenopodium album). He found the 

 following seeds eaten by Gambel's sparrows: Polygonum aviculare 

 (knotweed), Alsine media (chickweed), Chaetocloa glauca and C. 

 viridis (pigeon grass). John McB. Robertson (1931) observed Gam- 

 bel's sparrows and Puget Sound sparrows eating the small black 

 seeds of the blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus), a tree in which they 

 roost. John & James M. Macoun (1909) record Puget Sound spar- 

 rows at Huntingdon, B.C. on Sept. 9, 1901, feeding on thistle seed. 



