ALEUTIAN SAVANNAH SPARROW 705 



PASSERCULUS SANDWICHENSIS SANDWICHENSIS (Gmelin) 

 Aleutian Savamiah Sparrow 

 Contributed by Wendell Taber 



Habits 



The Krenitzeu Islands, Alaska, between the islands of Unimak 

 and Unalaska, have for the most part abrupt rocky shores but do not 

 reach any great elevation. Wliere their surface is not rocky, it is 

 covered with tundra or with long grass. Willows, the only trees, are 

 a stunted type, being for the most part prostrate and buried in the 

 tundra (McGregor, 1906). 



Such is the bleak habitat of the Aleutian Savannah sparrow (P. s. 

 sandwichensis) over the greater part of its breeding range. In view 

 of the comments of Lucien M. Turner (1885) that the Savannah 

 sparrow is a "summer visitor. Breeds. Not common." in the 

 "Nearer Islands, Alaska" (which includes the well-known Attn), it 

 would appear that the race formerly occupied more of the Aleutian 

 Islands than it does at present. 



Nesting. — A. R. Cahn (1947) says the Savannah sparrow "Appar- 

 ently arrives in numbers almost overnight," in the Dutch Harbor 

 region, and by late May or early June is suddenly everywhere among 

 the tundra grasses and in full song at once. It nests in the open 

 tundra. 



R. C. McGregor (1906) describes a nest of P. s. sandwichensis on 

 the Krenitzin Islands in Alaska as being composed of uniformly 

 sized, dry, yellow grass stems and sunk in dry moss on the ground. 



Plumages. — J. L. Peters and L. Griscom (1938) state that P. s. 

 sandwichensis averages the largest of the races of Savannah sparrow, 

 with long and proportionately slender bill. "In spring, general colora- 

 tion above the black and gray predominating, brown element reduced; 

 interscapulars with black centers separated from the conspicuous 

 grayish white edges by a very narrow area of grayish or rusty brown; 

 lores and superciliary stripe bright yellow, the latter extending well 

 beyond posterior border of the eye; wing coverts and inner secondaries 

 more or less broadly edged with pale or rusty isabelline. Streaking 

 beneatli not conspicuously broad or blackish." They state, further, 

 that sandwichensis is "the most satisfactory of the western subspecies; 

 there seems to be no great variation in size, and the variable color 

 characters that make a diagnosis of some of the other races so difficult, 

 are reduced to a minimum. An occasional specimen is found with a 

 greater extent of brown on the dorsal surface and more rufescent 

 wing edgings than is commonly shown by the average bird, but even 

 such specimens are readily determined by the large bill, long wing and 

 longer wing tip." 



