1468 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 part 3 



to northern New Mexico, central Arizona, and southern California. 

 This is essentially the distribution its describers, Miller and McCabe 

 (1935) attribute to it. They epitomize the population as a variable 

 "mosaic," for which they were reluctant to designate a type because 

 "there is no such thing as a specimen typical of the race." They 

 claim the subspecies averages slightly larger than nominate northern 

 and eastern lincolnii, and "includes chiefly birds with moderately 

 ruddy or brown backs, rarely ruddy or gray-brown backs. The 

 greatest number are brown-backed. Varying percentages of brown 

 backed birds are of the dull brown type with reduced light feather 

 margins. Birds with moderately broad and narrow stripes are 

 included, but the latter type predominates." 



It must be admitted that the systematic status of alticola still 

 remains open to some question, for no two recent writers who have 

 studied the western Lincoln's sparrows agree with each other, or with 

 the Check-List for that matter, on its characteristics and distribution. 

 Jewett et al. (1953) assign to it the birds breeding in the mountains 

 of Washington state, which they claim are "more grayish and slightly 

 larger" than nominate lincolnii. Gabrielson and Lincoln (1959) 

 include in it all the Lincoln's sparrows of mainland Alaska and Mac- 

 kenzie, which they find "entirely lack the rich browns that characterize 

 the eastern race." Finally Phillips et al. (1964) relegate alticola 

 to the synonymy of lincolnii with the tart parenthetical comment: 

 "Several earnest ornithologists have foundered on McCabe's color 

 descriptions or have left museum work in despair." 



At best the population to which the Check-List assigns this name 

 is a poorly marked and highly variable one. Sharp geographical 

 boundaries cannot be drawn between many of its segments, and 

 throughout its range are many individuals that cannot be identified 

 subspecifically with certainty on morphological grounds alone. 



Its summer habitat in California Grinnell and Miller (1944) describe 

 as "mountain meadows of boggy type, grown to fairly tall grass, 

 Veratrum, and sedges, and fringed or intermixed with willow thickets. 

 Wet ground and wet dead grass invariably are present. The ground 

 usually is flooded shallowly by melting snow or by springs or overflow 

 from streams at the time nest sites are chosen." 



In these surroundings the species becomes somewhat less shy. 

 W. L. Dawson (1923) notes: 



And forty years of acquaintance with the Lincoln Song Sparrow in winter and 

 on migrations will scarcely yield one more than fleeting glimpses, baffling dis- 

 appearances, or strained moments of maddening unnaturalness. 



Quite different is the story of the Lincoln sparrow in his summer home, an 

 emerald meadow in the Sierras, or a lush-bound cienaga in one of the southern 

 ranges. There he bursts upon you in a torrent of music, a flood which leaves 

 you fairly gasping. This little, slinking, bird-afraid-of-his-shadow gets all at 



