SONORA SAVANNAH SPARROW 725 



tral Sinaloa (El Molino). It is casual in winter in southern Baja 

 California (Todos Santos). 



AMMODRAMUS SAVANNARUM (Gmelin) 



Grasshopper Sparrow* 



PLATE 41 



Contributed by Robert Leo Smith 



Habits 



Although the grasshopper sparrow, Ammodramus savannamm, 

 ranges from the Atlantic Coast to California and from southern 

 Canada to southern Florida, Arizona, and Mexico, it is one of our 

 more obscure birds. It is seldom noticed, even by those who are 

 familiar with other birds. It usually keeps well hidden in the depths 

 of the grass, and when pursued it flies only when nearly tramped upon. 

 Its courtship, nest building, and rearing of young are carried on iji 

 a grass-world of its own, well hidden from human eyes. Its song so 

 closely resembles the stridulations of the grasshopper that many 

 persons do not recognize it as a bird song. 



The eastern race, A. s. pratensis (Vieillot), is found from the 

 northeastern Atlantic seaboard tlirough the tall grass prairie country 

 to eastern Oklahoma and northeastern Texas, and from extreme 

 southern Ontario and Quebec to central North and South Carolina, 

 central Alabama, and Georgia. Thomas Burleigh (1958) writes that 

 the birds nest locally in northern Georgia where grassland farming 

 makes more habitat available. In recent years they have been found 

 breeding south of the fall line in Macon County. 



The western race, A. s. perpallidus (Coues), ranges from western 

 Ontario, Minnesota, western Oldahoma, and central Colorado west 

 to the Pacific Coast, and from the extreme southern prairie provinces 

 of Canada south through eastern Washington and Oregon to central 

 Nevada and southwestern California. So much of its habitable 

 range is broken by mountains and deserts, its distribution is very 

 spotty. The bird, however, may be more common than supposed, 

 its absence in many regions reflecting the absence of observers rather 



*The following subspecies are discussed in this section: Ammodramus savan- 

 namm pratensis (Vieillot), A. s. floridanus (Mearns), A. s. perpallidus (Coucs), 

 A. 8. ammolegus Oberholser. Most of this account is based on the author's 

 study of the eastern race of the grasshopper sparrow (Wilson Bulletin, 1959, 

 1963). Alexander Sprunt contributed a brief account of the Florida grasshopper 

 sparrow, but kindly consented to withhold it so that all subspecies could be 

 incorporated into the one account. 



