EASTERN SAVANNAH SPARROW 681 



slamming, the rattle of milk bottles, or the yelliiiii; of children. \Vhile 

 we were there the male sang from various pieces of playground equip- 

 ment and picnic furniture scattered about the nearby beach. During 

 one of these song periods, he seemed oblivious to a woman who walked 

 withm 10 feet of him. 



Perhaps it is from such small beginnings that the Savannah sparrow 

 will continue to find a niche that will secure its place in this constantly 

 changing world. 



Eggs. — W. G. F. Harris writes: "The Savannah sparrow lays from 

 three to six eggs, w^th four or five comprising the usual set. They 

 are onh?" slightly glossy and generally ovate, though some tend to either 

 short-ovate or elongate-ovate. The ground color may be pale greenish 

 bluish, or dirty white, with markings of 'snuff brown,' 'russet,' 'Mars 

 brown,' 'Front's brown,' 'chestnut brown,' or 'auburn,' and oc- 

 casional undermarkings of 'pale neutral gray.' The eggs of this 

 species are particularly interesting because of the wide variation even 

 of eggs in the same clutch. They may be fuiely speckled, either 

 scattered over the entire egg or concentrated toward the larger end, 

 or be so heavily blotched, spotted, or clouded that the ground is 

 obscured, giving the egg the appearance of having a pale russet ground 

 with superimposed blotches of darker tones of the same color. There 

 is often a tendency for the markings to be somewhat blurred, and 

 frequeutl}'^ eggs have a few distinct scrawls of black. The measure- 

 ments of 50 eggs of P. s. savanna average 19.5 by 14.7 milhmeters; 

 the eggs showmg the fom* extremes measiu"e ;^i .5 by 15.2, 20.0 by 15.S 

 17.3 by 13.9, and 18.0 by 13.5 millimeters." 



The widely observed variation in clutch size probably results in part 

 from whether the egg count represents a first or second nesting. First 

 clutches are frequently larger than the second (Lack, 1954; Van Tyne 

 and Berger, 1959). 



Both male and female share the incubation (Baird, Brewer, and 

 Ridgway, 1874a), and I have personally observed one instance where 

 the male took over the feedmg of the uestlmgs after the death of the 

 female. According to Palmer (1949) "Incubation requires 12 days 

 and fledging about 14." 



Plumages. — The sexes are alike in all plumages. The natal down 

 according to Sutton (1935) is dull brownish gray. Wetherbee (1957), 

 attempting, with the 1912 Ridgway color plates, a more refined 

 color determination, refers to the down as being bister anteriorly 

 and wood-brown or olive-bro^\'n posteriorly. 



The postnatal molt is effected by the down being "pushed out by 

 the incoming nestling plumage" (Sutton, 1935). This down may 

 cling to the feather tips of the heavily streaked juvenal plumage for 

 some time after the bird has left the nest. Graber (1955) describes 



