LOUISIANA AND TEXAS SEASIDE SPARROWS 845 



Young. — On April 15 from 5:15 to 6:04 p.m., I watched Yellow's 

 movements to and from the nest, which then contained three eggs 

 and one tmy nestluig. Red sang throughout this period. Yellow's 

 four sessions on the nest, which involved incubating and brooding, 

 ranged from 4 to 10 minutes and averaged 7.2 minutes. Her five 

 recesses for foragmg ranged from 1.5 to 6 minutes and averaged 4.1 

 minutes. On leaving the nest she usually gave a series of sharp, 

 high-pitched flight notes, jee-jee-jee-jee-jee-jeee'u-jeee'u-jeee^u, as she 

 flew to grassy spots 35 to 50 yards south of the nest. She exercised 

 caution on each return, which usually consisted of one long flight, a 

 pause in the grass, and then one or more short flights to the nest. She 

 was still active after sunset, which came at 6 :20. 



The next day between 8:30 and 9:00 a.m., I noted both Yellow and 

 Red near the nest. It was apparent that Red had discovered the 

 young, of which there were now three flufl'y ones plus one pipped egg. 

 As I examined the nestlings. Yellow approached but remained in the 

 grass about eight j^ards away uttering a series of low chut notes. Red, 

 too, gave these notes whenever I was near him, even at places away 

 from the nest. It seemed as if the appearance of the young made him 

 more concerned by my presence. He sang intermittently. 



The nestlings were well endowed with patches of natal down which I 

 described in my notes as "smoke gray" or "mouse gray." Dense tufts 

 in the coronal and occipital areas were clearly separated, as were 

 those in the spinal and femoral areas. The maximum length of down 

 feathers on the dorsum was approximately eight millimeters. Sym- 

 metrical tufts of relatively long down characterized the scapular and 

 alar tracts, and there were two or three tufts of short whitish down in 

 the lower crural tracts. Little strips of short whitish down marked 

 the ventral tracts in the belly region. From the ventral aspect two or 

 three short whitish bits of down, which we might call "inner crural 

 down," could be seen where the inner part of the leg meets the skin of 

 the belly. Young birds found in another nest the same day had down 

 like that of Red's and Yellow's offspring except that the crural tracts, 

 both "inner" and "lower," were lacking. 



In late April in another part of the Grand Isle marshes I caught a 

 newly fledged seaside sparrow from which I entered the following 

 description of the fresh juvenal plumage in my notes: 



"Bill dusky-horn color, paler at tip. Gape pale whitish-yellow. 

 Iris brown. Crown and back broadly streaked with blackish, with 

 dull ochraceous-brown feather edginsrs. Rump feathers somewhat 

 lax or fluffy, the feathers with blackish central areas and ochraceous- 

 buff edgings. Rectrices ensheathed for nearly half their length 

 (these being up to 20 millimeters long), blackish centrally with duU, 

 buffy brown edgings. Wing coverts (except primary) blackish, 



