718 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part 2 



are nicely rounded and fairly well lined with slender leaves and feathers, 

 but so poorly put together that with the least careless handling they 

 fall to pieces. Ordinarily they are made of shreds of seaweed or leaves 

 and some dead grass stems. The preferred nest site is "a runt growth 

 of salicornia just a few inches high. This occurs not infrequently in 

 small patches where the tide moistens but does not overflow. Here 

 the sparrow hides his home cleverly, utilizing to the utmost the 

 cascades of weed growing over rough ground or small mounds." 

 Bancroft also mentions a small island well back from the mouth of 

 the lagoon that was fairly covered with cactus, a chollalike growth 

 supporting long drapings of gray moss. P. s. anulus apparently bred 

 in it, sometimes as much as four feet above the ground, concealing 

 the nests most carefully where the moss was thickest. These sparrows 

 also nested on the dry alkali itself, sometimes a hundred yards from 

 the water, always hiding the nest under a spreading branch. That 

 anulus may tend to colonial nesting is indicated by the fact that he 

 once flushed three birds within a yard of his feet: two had young 

 and one a fresh set of three eggs. In each case the bird gave the 

 most convincing demonstration of the broken wing act Bancroft 

 had ever witnessed. 



Distribution 



Range. — The Scammon Lagoon Savannah sparrow is resident 

 around the shores of Viscamo Bay, western Baja California (Santo 

 Domingo Landing, Scammon Lagoon). 



PASSERCULUS SANDWICHENSIS SANCTORUM Ridgway 



San Benito Savannah Sparrow 

 Contributed by Wendell Taber 



Habits 



P. s. sanctorum is resident on the San Benito Islands off central 

 western Baja California, which J. E. Thayer and Outram Bangs 

 (1907) describe as a group of three small, rocky, barren islands sur- 

 rounded by outlying rocks and kelp. They lie about 50 miles from 

 the mainland, 15 miles west of the northern end of Cerros Island, 

 and cover an area nearly 4 miles long by IK miles wide. West 

 Benito, the largest, has bold rocky shores and consists of an elevated 

 plateau with a mound near the center 600 feet above the sea. Middle 

 Benito is a low flat island, its highest part only 82 feet above the sea, 

 separated from West Benito by a passage 200 feet wide. East 

 Benito is the second largest and is marked by four prominent hills, 

 the highest 421 feet in altitude. The vegetation consists of the 



