MONTANE LINCOLN'S SPARROW 14G9 



once the courage of mighty convictions, when he has the mountain to back him; 

 and though he still skulks and evades, it is henceforth rather as a modest hero 

 shunning the plaudits of an unrestrained admiration." 



Nesting. — Charles R. Keyes (1905) was one of the first to record a 

 nest of this form. He found one in the central Sierras "with three 

 half-fledged young * * * in a small and very wet meadow near Susie 

 Lake, just off the Mt. Tallac trail, on July 2. It was placed in a 

 bunch of dead grass and composed of the same material and a few 

 hairs. Both parents approached me closely while at the nest." 

 Wright M. Pierce (1916) writes from the San Bernardino Mountains 

 of California, "On June 21 in a small meadow near Bluff Lake I found 

 a nest containing five eggs of this bird, incubation just started. The 

 nest was placed on the ground at the base of a small bunch of hellebore, 

 and was composed mostly of grass, with a little hair and one feather 

 for a lining." 



In the mountains of southwestern Montana, Aretas A. Saunders 

 (1910) writes in the experimental spelling of that day 



* * * I fiusht a Lincoln Sparrow (Melospiza lincolni) from its nest, situated at 

 the base of a clump of willows and containing three eggs. At our next camp, 

 about six miles south of Pipestone Basin, I found two more nests of this bird, one 

 with four and one with five eggs. The nests are much like those of the Song 

 Sparrow but a little smaller, and constructed almost entirely of grass with little 

 or no hair in the lining. The way in which this bird flushes from her nest is very 

 distinctive and quite unlike any other sparrow with which I am acquainted. She 

 slips quietly from her nest and runs off thru the grass without a note or a flutter 

 of any sort, her movements more like those of a mouse than a bird. In fact two 

 of the three birds I fiusht I supposed at first were mice, and had I not lookt at 

 them a second time would have gone away without seeing their nests. 



In his recent studies of subalpine fringillids in Colorado, Neil F. 

 Hadley (MS.) writes: 



Nineteen nests of the Lincoln's Sparrow were found. These nests were re- 

 stricted to very wet, marshy areas between 9,500 and 1 1,000 feet. The availability 

 of this particular habitat, plus the excellent concealment of the nest were important 

 factors in reducing the number of nests found. The number of eggs per nest 

 varied from 4 to 5 and averaged 4.4. The length of incubation for eggs in nests 

 for which it was possible to follow the complete history of a brood was 12 to 13 

 days, with a similar amount of time spent in the nest after hatching. It was not 

 determined whether the Lincoln's Sparrow attempted a second brood if the first 

 was unsuccessful or if more than one brood was reared during the season. 



Jewett et al. (1953) write: 



Few nests have ever been found in the [Washington] state. Dawson (1908d: 

 483) reports a breeding colony of some 20 individuals in the swamp at Longmire 

 Springs, Mt. Rainier. On July 1, 1908, the birds seemed to be about evenly 

 divided between care of young out of the nest and preparations for a second 

 nesting. Peck located a nest July 25, 1917, in a little alder bush in a swampy 

 place along Surveyors Creek, close to Signal Peak Ranger Station. The nest was 

 not quite 12 inches from the ground, being concealed by sedges. It was built of 



