968 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 237 rkzr 2 



Such a high percentage of nest failure must be exceptional, however, 

 because La\\Tence E. Hicks (in Brooks, 1938), when accounting for 

 the 26 nests he had under observation in Ohio, states that "the per- 

 centage of success is distinctly higher than that which Mrs. Nice has 

 found for the Song Sparrow, and which I have found for the Field 

 Sparrow and the Vesper Sparrow," but he does not give an actual 

 percentage figure. 



Disease-carrying potentialities. — In a letter from the Communicable 

 Disease Center, Atlanta, Ga., to Oscar M. Root, of North Andover, 

 Mass., in reply to his request for "information regarding the public 

 health importance of * * * FringiUids," the wTiter states that "to 

 our knowledge, encephahtis is the only human disease in which these 

 birds are incriminated. * * * the following FringiUids have been 

 found to carry antibodies to one or more of the American arthropod- 

 borne encephah tides." In the Hst of 12 species cited, the pine-woods 

 (=Bachman's) sparrow is included as a carrier of antibodies of western 

 equine encephalitis, but this species does not appear again in a further 

 list of three sparrows in which virus has been actually isolated. 



Fall.- — Bachman's sparrow begins to "wdthdraw from the northern 

 part of its range before the end of August. Mam-ice Brooks (1938) 

 quotes Lawrence E. Hicks in citing September 2 as the latest date on 

 which he has ever found this species in southern Ohio. In West 

 Vu'ginia, Brooks gives September 1 as the latest date in his field notes. 



Thomas D. Burleigh (1958), A\Titing of the northern part of Georgia, 

 states that "it doubtless lingers * * * through September and possibly 

 into October * * * but there are very few fall records later than the 

 end of August," 



Winter. — In winter, Bachman's sparrow occupies the territory south 

 and east of a line drawn from extreme southeastern North Carolina, 

 about along the faU line across South Carolina and Georgia, through 

 middle Alabama, thence to the coast of Mississippi. In Florida, it 

 invades the eastern part of the state and penetrates almost halfway 

 down the peninsula, well into the range of the Florida race. 



At this season it spreads out from its summer breeding habitat in 

 the pineries into open broomsedge fields and areas of scrub oak. In 

 the Pensacola, Fla., area, I have found it along the wet upland edges 

 of creek and river swamps where I had never seen it in summer. It 

 comes down, too, almost to the salt water shores of the coastal woods 

 into areas which, although apparently optimum for nesting, were not 

 occupied in summer. The spot that I mentioned in the section Voice, 

 where I could always hear the evening trills of roosting birds, is within 

 100 yards of a salt water beach. Herbert L. Stoddard {in Bm-leigh, 

 1958) says that it is often found "even in the fence corners with other 

 sparrows" where it "always seems to be out of character." 



