CALIFORNIA RUFOUS-CROWNED SPARROW 937 



and a small median forehead stripe are whitish; the superciliary is 

 gray. The back is reddish-brown, the feathers margined broadly 

 with grayish brown; the rump and upper tail coverts are broA\Ti, the 

 coverts tipped with grayish. Ventrally the adult has a whitish throat 

 mth a black "whisker" mark; the mid-abdomen is also whitish. The 

 breast and sides are grayish brown and the flanks buffy brown. The 

 wings are dark brown edged mth reddish-bro\\Ti which shades to 

 whitish on the outer prunaries. The secondary coverts and primary 

 coverts are dark brown edged with grayish. The tail is dark rusty. 

 Compared uith other races of A. ruficeps: 

 Adult plumage: 

 A. r. obscura — like ruficeps but colors darker. Back feathers 

 with darker centers. 



A. r. canescens — like ruficeps but reds and grays darker. Ap- 

 proaches obscura in darkness. 



A. r. sororia — like ruficeps but averages lighter, especially 

 ventrally, and red of head and back not as dark. 

 Juvenal plumage: 



A. r. obscura and A. r. canescens average darker than A. r. 

 rufi£eps, especially the breast streaks. A. r. sororia seems to retain 

 all its Juvenal primaries through the postjuvenal molt more often 

 than the other races do. — Larry Wolf 



Food. — In Chester Barlow's (1902) detailed account of the food 

 habits of the species, most of the data probably refer to this race: 



In two stomachs collected [locality unnamed] by Prof. Beal on June 27, 1901, 

 the average of vegetable matter was 97% and of animal matter 3%. In eighteen 

 stomachs collected by Mr. Grinnell and myself on Sept. 22, 1901 [doubtless near 

 Milpitas], the average of vegetable matter is 88.4% and of animal matter 11.6%; 

 one stomach collected March 16, 1902, vegetable and animal matter each 50%; 

 one stomach collected April 27, 1902, vegetable matter 6% and animal matter 

 94%. The food of the June specimens consisted of small oats, Erodium, grass 

 seeds and Hymenoptera. Those taken in September had a more varied bill of 

 fare, consisting of crickets, carabid beetles, ants, grasshoppers, Hymenoptera and 

 one olive scale, chickweed, Polygonum, Amaranthus, Erodium and oats. Grass- 

 hoppers in the animal and wild oats in the vegetable food seem to largely pre- 

 dominate. One March stomach contained Hymenoptera and Hemiptera and 

 unidentified seeds, while the April specimen showed Chrysomelid and Lampyrid 

 beetles, Jassids, Arachnids, oats and Erodium. 



Thus a decided shift from seeds to insects is manifest during the 

 nesting season in spring. W. Brewster (1879) remarks that the food 

 "consists largely of grubs and a certain green worm" which C. A. Allen 

 saw the parents canying to the young. The food brought to the 

 fledglings Roger Simpson (1925) posed to photograph "consisted 

 mostly of white grubs and small caterpillars, with an occasional 

 black insect or tiny butterfly." 



