NORTHERN SAGE SPARROW 1009 



Near Prineville, Oreg., I found a short-tailed juvenile on June 19. 

 It dodged under an Artemisia bush and as I approached began a vig- 

 orous flirting of wings and tail that made a distinct drumming sound. 

 It kept this up for at least two minutes until I drove it from the bush. 

 The adults came within 10 yards of me frequently, scolding with their 

 high-pitched tsips. 



Plumages. — In the juvenal plumage the forehead and crown are 

 gray, conspicuously streaked with black; on the nape and neck the 

 streaks are less heavy but become broad and sharp again on the back 

 and rump; the ground color of the latter areas is buffy gray. The 

 streaked upper tail coverts are brown. The rectrices are black, the 

 outer pair with light buff outer webs. The remiges are duU black, the 

 primaries lightly edged and the inner secondaries broadly edged with 

 dull cinammon. The lesser wing coverts are light brown, the middle 

 coverts blackish tipped with bufly white, and the greater coverts are 

 blackish with broad buff edges and tips of buffy white; thus two light 

 wing bars are formed. The eye ring is white, the lores and feathers 

 below the eye dark. The feathers above the lores are whitish, the 

 superciliary area gray. The chin and throat are white, faintly 

 streaked, and with poorly defined black mustache marks separating 

 the white subauricular area. The breast, sides, and flanks are whitish, 

 conspicuously streaked with black. The lower belly and crissum are 

 unstreaked, white to buff white; the leg feathers are brown and white. 



The postjuvenal molt entails replacement of the body plumage 

 and wing coverts but not the rectrices and remiges. It typically is 

 completed early, by late August or early September, and the re- 

 sulting plumage of the first winter is like that of adults; the sexes 

 are the same in coloration. 



In the adults the upper surface is gray, slightly buff-tipped in 

 fresh plumage, the back and rump drab gray. The back is lightly 

 streaked wdth black. The wings and tail are blackish, edged with 

 clay to dull cinnamon color, the outer web and the tip of the inner 

 web of the lateral tail feathers are white. The wing coverts are light 

 brown, tipped with clay color to buff to form two wing bars. The 

 bend of the ^^ing is pale yeUow. A supraloral spot, the eye ring, 

 and the malar stripes are white; the lores, subocular area, the mus- 

 tache mark, and the breast spot are black. The chin, breast and 

 belly are white; the sides and flanks buffy and faintly streaked 

 with dusky; the maxUla blackish; mandible blue gray; feet dark 

 brown; iris bro^vn. 



Food. — George F. Kjiowlton (1937a) reporting on this species in 

 Utah found that fifteen stomachs held the following: "4 grasshop- 

 pers; 18 Hemiptera, 13 being false chinch bugs; 68 Homoptera, 

 made up of 64 nymphal and 4 adult beet leafhoppers in 3 birds; 



