910 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part 2 



on the wing, which had recently left the nest or were somewhat larger 

 (two Juvenal females had the tail 21 and 37 millimeters long) ; one pair 

 Avith two eggs (incubating) ; another pair at an apparently completed 

 but empty nest; and at least three other males were heard singing 

 near by, but their mates (if any) were not found. 



Three days later I checked the deep-soil habitat. Here three or 

 four males were singing, but I found no nests or young. To verify 

 this surprising difference between two localities about 25 kilometers 

 (15 miles) apart, I revisited the deep-soil habitat on July 13. Again 

 no young were found, and it seemed that nesting had started normally 

 in late June; for the most advanced birds detected were a pair with 

 the male singing and the female carrying small grasshoppers, pre- 

 sumably to yomig in the nest. Another nest was found with one 

 broken egg. 



In 1958 unseasonal nestings occurred in the swale habitat, though 

 apparently less commonly or successfully. Arthur Twomey, Jr., 

 and I could find no active nest on April 20, though one looked com- 

 pleted. (A cracked egg was later found just below, but the nest 

 was apparently abandoned.) Some early nests did succeed, however, 

 for I took a female just out of the nest (tail 11.2 millimeters) on 

 May 10, and Robert W. Dickerman and I took grown young, possibly 

 from two different families, on June 12, well into the post-juvenal 

 molt. 



More conspicuous, however, were the unseasonal nestings dis- 

 covered in the marginal desert wash habitat by James M. and Eugenia 

 W. Gates (MS.). On Apr. 20, 1958, they found a nest with four 

 eggs, subsequently deserted, plus two possibly new nests; and on 

 revisiting the area on April 27, we found more nests with and without 

 eggs. One nest the Gates followed up later had three very small 

 young and one egg on May 3; another was apparently successful, the 

 young presumably leaving on May 15 or 16. At this time rufous- 

 winged sparrows were also nesting in other places. In the riparian 

 habitat I found a nest mth four eggs (later deserted?) on April 30, and 

 Eliot F. Porter (MS.) found another which four young left, prema- 

 turely in his judgment, on May 7, 1958. In the farmland habitat Joe 

 T. Marshall, Jr. (MS.) found two nests, \nth two and three eggs, 

 respectively, on May 2. The former had an apparently newly hatched 

 chick on May 17, when the latter's young appeared to be about 6 days 

 old. These were still being brooded on the 18th. 



Another exceptionally wet year was 1940-41. In the Wilson C. 

 Hanna collection {fide W. G. F. Harris) is a set of eggs Oscar F. Clark 

 took on May 4, 1941, at Sells on the Papago Indian Reservation, 

 Arizona, where the desert wash is the principal habitat. 



Nesting continues in Arizona into September. C. E. Bendire 

 (1882) "found fresh eggs as late as Sept. 1, 1872." These are pre- 

 sumably the same eggs reported (Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, 1874) 



