BACHMAN'S SPARROW 967 



known to utter a note, which C. E. Bendire (1888) characterizes as 

 "chdy, chdy," a sound more like the hissing of a snake than the scolding 

 of a bird." A sharp, rather prolonged pseet of alarm or remonstrance 

 is sometimes given by a parent bird when a nest with young is dis- 

 turbed. The common call note of the species is a typical sparrow- 

 like chip, which is not distinctive in any way. 



Field marks. — This is one of the most nondescript of birds. Even 

 when seen to good advantage, it has no prominent or conspicuous 

 mark that makes for easy identification. In general it is just a plain, 

 rather reddish sparrow with an unstreaked, slightly buffy breast. 

 The grayish superciliary line is not well marked. The unstreaked 

 crown and much longer tail distinguish it from the grasshopper spar- 

 row, another species with a plain breast sometimes found in the same 

 habitat. The dark biU, noticeably larger than that of the small- 

 billed chipping and field sparrows, gives the whole head a fairly 

 distinctive outline that I have found at times to be a good field mark. 

 Perhaps the bird is best identified by its habitat — the only reddish- 

 backed sparrow of overgrown fields and pine woods. 



The Juvenal plumage has a noticeable eye ring and the breast and 

 sides streaked with dark gray. 



Enemies. — H. S. Peters (1936) lists only two ectoparasites on the 

 Bachman's sparrow: a mite {Analgopsis sp.) taken from birds col- 

 lected in Ohio, and a tick (Haemaphysalis leporis-palustris) from some 

 birds in Georgia. 



Herbert Friedmann (1943) cites only three instances of finding eggs 

 of the brown-headed cowbird in the nests of this species. Several 

 ^vriters consider that this comparative immunity is because domed 

 nests are difficult for the cowbirds to find, but this point is not well 

 taken because, as has been stated earfier in this account, the great 

 majority of the nests within the breeding range of the cowbird are not 

 domed. It seems more fikely that this immunity is achieved by the 

 sparrows in their expert concealment of all nests, whether domed or 

 not, and that the cowbird has as much difficulty in finding nests as 

 the ornithologist. 



Undoubtedly, Bachman's sparrow, in common with all other small 

 ground-nesting birds, is at the mercy of a number of predators — stray 

 dogs and semiferal cats, in addition to the native mammals. Several 

 observers specifically name the "blacksnake" (though whether it is 

 Elaphe sp. or Coluber sp. is not indicated) as a known destroyer of 

 nests, and undoubtedly other species of snakes are equally guilty. 

 Fred M. Jones (1940) states that, in southwestern Virginia, of "a 

 dozen or more" nests that he had found, "the crows accounted for all 

 of them" except the two in his yard. 



