RUFOUS- WINGED SPARROW 911 



as taken September 11 and still preserved in the U.S. National 

 Museum {fide W. G. F. Harris). Nevertheless ElHott Coues (1873b) 

 does not include this species among birds C E. Bendire found "still 

 laying September 13," 1872. Farther south in Sonora, a family of 

 three young was "at most two or three days out of the nest" on Nov. 

 1, 1946 (Pitelka, 1951); and even near the Arizona border a "small 

 juvenile" was taken September 29 (Miller et ah, 1957). Likewise 

 R. T. Moore (1946) reported heavily incubated eggs found by C. C. 

 Lamb in Sinaloa, Oct. 2, 1933. 



There is, unfortunately, no sure evidence of just when the birds 

 in the old Tucson riparian habitat normally nested. We know only 

 that C. E. Bendire (1882) found the first eggs "about June 14, 1872, 

 although I believe these birds commence to breed about a month 

 earlier, their nests having been previously overlooked by me" — an 

 understandable possibility, as the species itself was undescribed. 

 Also, Frank Stephens (Brewster, 1882a) found a nest with three eggs 

 May 25, 1881, a year of better-than-average March and April rainfall. 

 So all this is very inconclusive. 



Charles E. Bendu'e (1882) thought that two or three broods were 

 raised in the riparian habitat in 1872. Likewise in 1958, some pairs 

 probably raised two broods in the desert wash habitat. Here the 

 Gates (MS.) found two new nests with eggs on July 6; one of these, 

 with one egg, was only about 7 or 8 meters from the site of the appar- 

 ently successful nesting in May. 



Nesting. — The nest site preferred in the swale habitat is the edge of 

 a thick, taU desert hackberry bush {Celtis tola, var. pallida), 0.6 to 2 

 meters above the ground. In the desert wash habitat w^here most of 

 these bushes were partly bare due to the increasmg desiccation of the 

 country, the birds showed a marked preference for the edges of or 

 open parts within palo verde trees (Cercidium) 1.3 to 2.5 meters above 

 the ground. Sometimes the nests w^ere in the less dense clumps of 

 mistletoe on the palo verde trees, or in cholla cacti (Opuntiajulgida) — 

 in one case in a cholla growing within the shelter of a palo verde. In 

 the farmland habitat, w^here none of these plants grows, the favored 

 site is 1 to 1.3 meters up in a thorny Condalia lycioides bush. In the 

 old riparian habitat nests were "firmly fixed into a fork, or crotch" 

 0.15 to 1.5 meters up "in low bushes, preferably small mesquite 

 bushes" (Bendu-e, 1882). 



The building of two nests in swale habitat on June 29, 1954, was 

 accomphshed as follows (Marshall, MS.) : "The male gets up and sings 

 a bit while the female brings a big bundle of the pale, ciu"ly, basal 

 leaves of tobosa grass. She comes down to the nest from above, 

 enters, and w^orks there 15-30 seconds; then she cUmbs out, hops up 

 higher, and both birds fly down to feed 30-40 meters away." 



The nest itself is a conspicuous, soHd, deep cup of old, dead (usually 

 gray) plant stems, lined with fine grass and usually (at least on the 



646-737— 68— pt. 2 21 



