ASHY RUFOUS-CROWNED SPARROW 947 



time. At 9:36 a.m. a single dew call came from another bird about 

 100 feet away. The singer, presumably the male, stopped singing 

 and gave two dew notes. He then flew to a bush top above the pre- 

 sumed female where he gave soft, light sst notes and, with the taU 

 slightly above horizontal, turned his body to right and left in quick 

 succession. After several seconds the "female" flew up to a perch close 

 to the displaying bird. Almost immediately, at 9:37, the pair flew 

 some 75 feet across the canyon where they perched in low shrubs and 

 gave light "skitter" calls. I could not see whether postures of the 

 same or another sort accompanied the calls, as they typically do in the 

 towhees. After this the two birds moved near each other to forage 

 in a more open area 40 feet away, and then gave only dew calls. 



The "skitter" call is similar to the squeee-squee-chee-chee-churrrr oj 

 the California races of the brown towhee (^^Titten see see crrrrrrr by 

 Marshall, 1964) but is higher in pitch, of decidedly less volume, and 

 seems to run its course more rapidly. Crudely represented as skee- 

 ske-ti-ti-tititi, it seems to be given during or at the conclusion of a 

 "greeting" ceremony when paired rufous-crowned sparrows rejoin 

 after having been apart. I have heard it from pairs or presumed 

 pairs of rufous-crowns as early as February 12 and commonly through 

 early June, which was usually the end of my breeding season \dsits 

 to the San Gabriel Mountain plots. On Sept. 1, 1951, however, I 

 saw and heard several pairs giving this call in each plot where I had 

 mapped territories in the spring. 



Nesting. — L. Percy Williams (1897) described the first nest of this 

 race — one with four fresh eggs he found in the Crafton HUls east of 

 Redlands Apr. 23, 1893. It was under a bunch of grass where "a 

 slight hoUow had been scratched for the nest, and was lined \^dth 

 coarse grasses and had an inner lining of fine, dry grass stems and a 

 few horse hairs woven loosely together. It was rather deep but not 

 much larger in diameter than was necessary to accommodate the 

 bird's body." Six nests he subsequently took were more or less 

 similar, although usually the nest was flabby. Three contained no 

 horse hair. All were positioned to catch the morning sun. 



Nelson K. Carpenter (1907b) describes a nest of three eggs he 

 found near San Diego on May 29 as follows: 



The nest was placed at the foot of a bank which was about a foot high. A 

 small bush which had grown on top of the ledge had died and fallen over making 

 a miniature brush pile. Into this the birds had broken their way using the fine 

 twigs of the bush as a foundation for the nest. This mat of twigs was nearly 

 two inches wide on the front side of the nest and entirely lacking where the nest 

 touched the bank. The nest itself was made of very fine dry yellow grass with 

 considerable black horse hair in the lining. The inside dimensions of the nest 

 are one and a half inches deep by two and three-quarter inches across. The mat 



