974 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part a 



it ended two pine-woods sparrows flew up from the ground in the 

 direction from which the song had come. 



"On May 7 at 8:00 a.m. at the same place a bird repeated the song 

 just described several times, once singing in mid-air. The flight of 

 the singer was slow, the wings fluttering rapidly. At the moment of 

 utterance the back was arched and the head thrown up at an angle of 

 45° from the body, which was more or less parallel to the ground. I 

 failed to see the other member of the pair, if it was present. This 

 ecstatic song was never heard again." 



The only record that can be found in the literature of the exact 

 period of incubation of any of the three races of A. aestivalis is cited 

 for this race by Brooke Meanley (1959). Writing of a nest he found 

 in central Louisiana Apr. 16, 1956, he states that the nest "was 

 virtually complete by this date and the first egg was laid AprU 17. 

 An additional egg was deposited each day through the 20th, complet- 

 ing the clutch of four eggs. The four eggs were marked and on May 2, 

 the first three eggs laid had hatched ; the fourth egg laid hatched the 

 next day." This seems to indicate that incubation commenced after 

 the laying of the third egg, and that the period of incubation was 14 

 days. 



Val Nolan gives an interesting account of the behavior of a brood of 

 nestlings from the day of hatching: "On my inspection of the nest 

 during the ensuing few days I was impressed by the absence of any 

 behavior indicative of fear in the nestlings. Until June 4 they did 

 not even shrink from my hand as I parted the grass around them. On 

 June 4 at 4:30 the situation changed. The young birds, now well 

 feathered, sat silently as I bent over to look at them; then they sud- 

 denly burst squawking from the nest and scattered in flight. The 

 distances of the flights were at least 10 yards. On landing the fledg- 

 lings became silent and concealed themselves so well that I was unable 

 to find them. Although my attentions were clearly the immediate 

 cause of this departure from the nest, on the 10th day after hatching, 

 the flight of the birds was so steady that it seems safe to say that the 

 fledging was only slightly premature." 



Val Nolan adds a note on the behavior of an adult sparrow at a nest 

 of newly hatched young, when he writes that it "had flown up and 

 perched 2 feet high on a little limb at a few yards' distance. CaUing 

 the sharp pseet note repeatedly, it also engaged in several other 

 actions of interest. At intervals it bobbed its body up and down 

 verticaUy in the manner of the wrens, suddenly flexing and then ex- 

 tending the legs and tarsi. At other times its tail switched and its 

 body jerked from side to side, i.e., the sparrow quickly rotated its 

 body horizontally within an angle of some 40** without moving its 

 feet." 



