1460 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part 3 



secretive habits of the adults and silence of the young no doubt help 

 them avoid predation. They do not always escape, however, as 

 Frank W. Braund and John W. Aldrich (1914) mention "young being 

 eaten by sharp shinned hawk" from a nest in the Upper Peninsula of 

 Michigan. 



Apparently cowbird parasitism is comparatively rare. Herbert 

 Friedmann (1963) writes: 



This sparrow has been recorded as a cowbird victim only a small number of 

 times. S. S. Stansell, A. D. Henderson, and T. E. Randall informed me inde- 

 pendently of parasitized nests, six in number, which they had found in Alberta. 

 Dr. Ian McTaggert Cowan wrote me of a parasitized nest found at Elk Island 

 Park, Alberta, the notes on which are in the files of the University of British 

 Columbia. The late J. II. Bowles wrote me that he had in his collection a para- 

 sitized set of eggs taken at Kalevala, Manitoba, on June 6, 1920. G. Bancroft 

 informed me of set found in Monroe County in northern New York on June 1, 

 1903. Street (Houston and Street, 1959, p. 195) found a nest at Nipawin, Sas- 

 katchewan, on June 3, containing only 1 egg of the sparrow; two days later it 

 held 2 sparrow eggs and 2 cowbird eggs; and two days later, again, it held 3 

 cowbird eggs, no sparrow eggs, and the shell of another cowbird egg outside but 

 near the nest. The New York Record refers to the eastern race of the Cowbird, 

 M.a.ater; the others, to M.a.artemisiae. All refer to the typical race of the 

 sparrow. 



At Dorion the song sparrow appeared to be the Lincoln's sparrow's 

 chief competitor. A song sparrow frequently sang from the same 

 small spruce tree the male of our 1956 nesting pair favored as a 

 singing perch. The Lincoln's sparrow never disputed possession of 

 this tree but always beat a hasty and unobtrusive retreat. On 

 various occasions song sparrows were seen chasing Lincoln's sparrows. 

 The two species frequently had overlapping territories and, so far as 

 could be determined, had identical territorial requirements. Possibly 

 song sparrow competition is a factor determining the southern border 

 of the nesting range of Lincoln's sparrow. Some territories occupied 

 by Lincoln's early in the season were found later in undisputed 

 possession of song sparrows. The smaller sparrows were able to 

 remain in the same area in the face of song sparrow aggression only 

 by dint of persistent passive resistance: they always fled and re- 

 turned later by stealth. "The meek shall inherit the earth." 



The Lincoln's sparrows at Dorion frequently hunted for food in 

 the territory of the other congeneric species there, the swamp sparrow, 

 but no conflicts were observed between the two. Chipping sparrows 

 nested within the territory of our 1956 pair but did not conflict, as 

 they nested at a greater height and foraged largely high up in tall 

 spruces. White-throated sparrows were observed to chase even the 

 song sparrows when their ranges overlapped, though the white- 

 throats tended to confine most of their activities to more heavily 

 forested areas. 



