1544 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part 3 



Outside the breeding range, in California, morphna "Has been 

 noted specifically in weedy thickets, along grassy ditch banks, in old 

 cornfields, and in wooded or brush-bordered gardens. This race is 

 not noticeably restricted to the vicinity of water in the winter season 

 in California" (Grinnell and Miller, 1944). 



Mortality. — Tompa found that 29 of 55 birds (53 percent) banded 

 as adults survived from one summer until the beginning of the follow- 

 ing breeding season. During the next approximately 10 months, 

 from the onset of breeding until the end of January, adult mortality 

 was only 22 percent. Emigration of the young apparently prevented 

 accurate determination of first-year mortality. One year Tompa 

 recaptured 21 of 113 young that he had banded the preceding season, 

 19 on Mandarte, 2 on adjacent islands. Egg and nestling losses on 

 Mandarte Island, where nest predators and parasites were virtually 

 lacking, were less than 40 percent. 



Plumage. — Ridgway (1901) describes morphna as being similar in 

 color to the race cleonensis, "but much larger and colors more uniform 

 above, the rusty brown or chestnut streaks on back, etc., less strongly 

 contrasted with the rusty olive ground color and the black mesial 

 streaks less distinct (often obsolete); under parts with the chestnut 

 streaks on chest, etc., usually without blackish shaft-streaks, and the 

 flanks olivaceous rather than tawny. Young, slightly rufescent bister 

 brown above, the back streaked with blackish; beneath dull whitish or 

 very pale buffy grayish, the chest, sides, and flanks more or less tinged 

 with buffy or pale fulvous and streaked with sooty brownish." 



Food. — L. M. Huey (1954) collected a female of this subspecies near 

 San Diego, Calif., on Oct. 13, and states that "the entire digestive 

 tract was found to be thoroughly stained red from a diet of the ripe 

 [Opuntia] cactus fruit." Tompa mentions caterpillars and lacewings 

 as food items. 



Fall. — Mainland birds show a tendency to wander in the fall, as 

 indicated by records from altitudes of 4,000 feet in the Cascade 

 Mountains of Washington and from heights in the Olympics, as well as 

 from records east of the Cascades. Most of these wanderers are 

 thought to be young birds (Jewett et al., 1953), as Tompa's work 

 suggests. 



Winter. — Winter habitats are varied and include most of the places 

 itemized by Jewett et al. (1953), as quoted in the second paragraph 

 of this life history. Gabrielson and Jewett (1940) regard morphna as 

 a conspicuous member of the mixed winter flocks of sparrows in 

 Oregon. Songs are heard there on bright winter mornings. In 

 another paper, Jewett (1916) says that birds of this race "are very 

 plentiful on the ocean beach, feeding amongst the driftwood." 



