1430 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 part 3 



with enthusiasm: too-wheet-whoo — tsweek-tsuck-tseeka tsew! The 

 wheet, tsweet and tseeka notes were high and emphatic, while the others 

 were pitched lower, the tsuck being an unstressed connective. An 

 excellent rendition of the song by William L. Dawson (1909) is 

 ooree, rickit, loopiteer! Few mountain birds, during July days, are 

 better known for the beauty, strength, and vivacity of their song 

 in the high mountains of the Mt. Baker country than the males 

 of this species as they revel in the sunny landscape of the subalpine 

 parks, and it is not unusual to find 4 males singing each within sound 

 of one another's voice, although widely distributed along the climbing 

 moraines (Shaw)." 



On the other hand Bendire (1889) was not so highly impressed 

 by the singing of schistacea: "While the female is covering her eggs, 

 the male may frequently be heard giving vent to his nuptial song, 

 in the early morning and just before sundown. His lay, however, 

 is rather weak and of small compass, very much resembling that of 

 Melospiza fasciata [melodia] montana. He delivers it while perched 

 on some small twig, overlooking the thicket in which the nest is 

 placed and generally close to it. Their usual call note is a repeated 

 tzip tzip." 



Aretas A. Saunders (1910) made the following surprising observa- 

 tions of a pair he watched in a willow thicket near Bozeman, Montana 

 in mid- April: "At first I believed, from their actions, that the birds were 

 mating, but later, when I notist that both birds sang alternately, 

 I decided that they must be rival males. The songs were very similar 

 in every way except that one was somewhat weaker than the other. 

 I finally secured the bird with the weaker song and was much sur- 

 prised when, on later examination, it proved to be a female." 



Enemies. — A. M. Ingersoll (1913) gives the following dismal 

 account of his experiences while collecting eggs near Cisco, Placer 

 County, Calif., in June and July, 1912: "Sixteen nests of Thick- 

 billed Fox Sparrow (Passerella i. megarhyncha) . Two nests and sets of 

 eggs were taken by myself. Two nests were emptied of eggs by chil- 

 dren. One with two eggs was abandoned before incubation com- 

 menced. One with four eggs was destroyed by sheep feeding on 

 foliage of bush. Five nests with dead nestlings were examined 

 after the snow. Four nests were emptied by jays. One nest con- 

 taining two pipped eggs was discovered through the actions of a 

 jay that had its feast interrupted." He attributes the "principal 

 havoc" to fox sparrow nesting success, and to that of many other 

 passerines there, to the activities of Steller's jays and an unseasonable 

 fall of heavy snow that fell June 23. 



Herbert Friedmann (1963) sums up the available information on 

 cowbird parasitism in the species as follows: 



