922 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 paet 2 



stream, and was composed of fine grass and lined with a few horse- 

 hairs" (Attwater, 1892). 



Eggs. — Clutches of four are listed from the Chisos Mountains, 

 Texas, about June 1901 (F. M. Bailey, 1902) ; the Arbuckle Mountains, 

 Okla., May 16, 1926 (Nice, 1931); and the Austin region, Texas, 

 May 6, 1892, and May 1919 (Sinunons, 1925). In the Kerrville, 

 Texas, region, L. R. Wolfe finds "normally three or four, pure white." 

 G. F. Simmons gives the variation as "three to five", and describes the 

 egg as "plain white, with faint bluish tinge," 20 by 15.5 milHmeters. 



Behavior.— H. W. PhilHps and W. A. Thornton (1949) flushed a 

 bird that "fluttered about 10 feet from the nest feigning an injury in 

 an attempt to distract us." Unfortunately the contents of the nest are 

 not mentioned. 



Voice. — The song of this sparrow seems to vary geographically. 

 Florence M. Bailey (1928) describes one heard in northeastern New 

 Mexico (presumably this race) as "tchee-dle, tchee-dle, tchee-dle, tehee- 

 die, tchee-dle.'' Margaret M. Nice (1929) says that in the Wichita 

 Mountains, Okla., "The usual song is a chippering of six to nine 

 notes, the first two-thirds ascending very slightly, the rest descending 

 in a more marked degree. Its length was 1.2 to 1.5 seconds. When 

 a bird was singing steadily, the number of songs per minute ranged 

 from seven to nine, while the intervals from the beginning of one 

 song to the beginning of the next varied from 4.5 to 10.7 seconds, the 

 average of thirty-one being 7.3 seconds. The song is not loud, and 

 to my mind not at all musical." She also describes a number of 

 other songs, calls, and scolding notes, as does Simmons (1925). The 

 latter gives the season of song near Austin, Texas, as Mar. 17, 1905 to 

 July 18, 1915. 



Fall and winter. — Most of the "proof" of migration in the rufous- 

 crowned sparrow rests on this race. Long ago Robert Ridgway (1901) 

 identified two grayish specimens from Veracruz and Puebla as migrants 

 of eremoeca. I have not seen these specimens, but as Pierce Brodkorb 

 (1948) records a grayish specimen taken in Veracruz in May, this 

 evidence needs to be reviewed. 



At its northern limit, in southernmost Kansas, the only two records 

 for the species are in summer, but little work has been done there in 

 winter, when small populations of Aimophilae easily escape detection. 

 In adjacent Oklahoma, G. M. Sutton (MS.) finds "no evidence that 

 species descends to lower elevations or changes habitat in any way 

 in winter." He lists winter records for Cimarron, Jackson, Kiowa, 

 Greer, Comanche, Murray, and Latimer counties. In northeastern 

 Texas (Fort Worth-Dallas region) and the Kerrville region, Warren 

 M. Puhch, Sr. (MS.) and L. R. Wolfe (MS.) have no records for 

 migration or winter at any point far from the nesting areas. In 



