1400 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 part 3 



tain misery (Ceanolhus) so abundant on many California mountain 

 slopes. Farther north and east the nesting cover is commonly conif- 

 erous, or again it may be wholly deciduous alders and willows. 



Newfoundland probably has more suitable cover than any other 

 part of iliaca's summer range. There Peters and Burleigh (1951) 

 claim: "It is a bird of the thicket and the forest, and it does not come 

 regularly into towns and settlements. It prefers a brushy wood edge, 

 grown up field, cut-over woodland or scrubby woods." At St. 

 Anthony D. B. O. Savile (MS.) found it the dominant bird from May 

 25 to Sept. 3, 1951. He writes: "No area except open marsh or bog 

 and a few bare hillsides is without this species. About town they 

 invaded shrubby areas that would be utilized by song sparrows where 

 that species occurs. As many as six territories were noted in 300 

 yards of road in mixed farm and waste land at the edge of town." 

 William J. Brown (1912) also refers to fox sparrows nesting near 

 dwellings: "A small area of evergreen fenced in is called a 'garden' 

 by the Newfoundlander, and in such places fox and white- throated 

 sparrows, ruby-crowned kinglets and several other species were 

 nesting commonly." 



On the south shore of the St. Lawrence fox sparrows are relatively 

 scarce in the nesting season. A few have been found at Perce and 

 nearby Bonaventure Island in Gaspe County. Farther west in 

 Matane County I have seen a few in June at Leggatt's Point, 6 miles 

 west of Metis Beach during the years 1917-1922, with a peak of five 

 in full song on the evening of June 7, 1921. They were frequenting 

 almost impenetrable stands of low, shrubby spruce bordering boglands. 

 Several blackpoll warblers were singing in the same spot. When I 

 revisited the same area June 18, 1957, neither species was noted. 

 The low spruce growth had become a forest in which Swainson's 

 thrushes, winter wrens, ruby-crowned kinglets, yellow-bellied fly- 

 catchers, Blackburnian and several other warblers were in full song. 



Fox sparrows seem to have a penchant for islands, particularly 

 those with steep, rocky shores where the growth is apt to be stunted 

 and gnarled and more or less impenetrable. Here they find safer 

 cover than on the adjacent mainland, because foxes and other preda- 

 tors, including man, are often absent. I believe the most southerly 

 nesting haunts for this race along the lower St. Lawrence are a number 

 of small islands in Riviere du Loup and Kamouraska counties, in- 

 cluding Basque Island off Trois Pistoles where I heard 12 singing and 

 found 2 nests June 12, 1929, Garden (Pilgrim's) Island off St. Andre, 

 Brandy Pots, and Cacouna, on each of which my wife and I heard 

 one or more singing. 



On the Magdalen Islands Philip B. Philipp (1925) found the species 

 common everywhere "in the bogs, in the stunted spruces along the 



