LINCOLN'S SPARROW 1435 



By the time that Audubon came to write the original description of 

 this bird, which was indeed new to science — although he found speci- 

 mens already existed undescribed in the collection of William Cooper 

 of New York — he used the more formal name "Lincoln's Finch, 

 Fringilla Lincolnii." It has since become customary to call the 

 typical American Ernberizinae "sparrows," and we now know this 

 bird as Lincoln's sparrow. 



During the summers of 1955, 1956, and 1957 we investigated the 

 life history of Lincoln's sparrow in the vicinity of Dorion, a scattered 

 community in Stirling Township, Thunder Bay District, about 50 

 miles northeast of Port Arthur, Ontario near the north shore of Lake 

 Superior. Incidental observations were made at various other points 

 along the north shore. Most of the literature dealing with this bird 

 has to do with its occurrence and behavior on migration and with 

 its song. A few accounts of nests and their contents have been 

 published, but there is no study of the activities of the birds during 

 the nesting cycle. Our studies were undertaken to fill in this gap 

 in their life history. A good deal yet remains to be learned, partic- 

 ularly of the birds' relationships with other species and with the 

 later stages of the nesting cycle. We have no personal observations 

 of this species on its winter range. Reports of its winter activities 

 in Central America suggest that its behavior and apparent abundance 

 there are very different from our general concept of a secretive, 

 uncommon species. 



Lincoln's sparrow is found over a wide range, from its wintering 

 area in Mexico and Guatemala to the limit of trees in northern Canada 

 during the breeding season, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 

 Throughout this range, it is largely a bird of shrublands. It occupies 

 the scrub growth after a forest has been cut over, also the natural 

 brush strips around the edges of bogs and along water courses, the 

 new growth following forest fires, and the "permanent" scrub zones 

 of the western mountains. 



An essential feature of Lincoln's sparrow habitat appears to be the 

 presence of low bush growth, usually from 4 to 8 feet high, and with 

 openings in which tufts of grasses or sedges occur. It is often swampy 

 or definitely wet underfoot, though this is not always the case. Lester 

 L. Snyder told us that in the Abitibi region of northern Ontario he 

 frequently found Lincoln's sparrow in dry, upland openings in the 

 forest. In the Nipigon region he found the species in raspberry 

 patches; farther south in the province, in wet places with swamp 

 sparrows. At Grandview in the Thunder Bay District of Ontario 

 the bird lives on generally dry and rocky hillsides with low shrub 

 growth of dogwood, alder, willow and birch, occasional taller aspens 



