436 S YS TEMA TIC S YXOPSIS. — PA SSERES — OSCIXES. 



ries and wiug-coverts similarly variegated ; tips of greater and median coverts forming whitish 

 bars ; rump ashy, with slight blackish streaks or none; primaries and tail-feathers dusky, with 

 paler edges. Smaller than the Tree Sparrow; length 5.00-5.50; extent 8.00-9.00; wing 

 2.66-2.75 ; tail less, about 2.50. Sexes alike, but very young birds quite different : crown 

 streaked like back ; breast and sides thickly streaked with dusky ; bill pale brown ; and head 

 lacking definite black. In this stage, which, however, is of brief duration, it resembles some 

 other species, but may be known by a certain ashiness the others lack, and from the small 

 Sparrows that are streaked below when adult, by its generic characters. Eastern N. Am., N. 

 to subarctic regions, W. to Rocky Mts., S. into Mexico ; migratory in most regions, but breed- 

 ing throughout its range; extremely abundant, and the most familiar species about houses, in 

 gardens, and elsewhere, nesting in trees or shrubbery ; nest of fine dried grass, lined with hair ; 

 eggs 4-5, bluish, speckled sparsely and chiefly about the larger end with blackish-brown, with 

 purplish shell-markings ; size about 0.70 X 0.55. {S. domestka of 2d-4th eds. of the Key, after 

 Passer domesticus Bartram, Trav. 1791, p. 291— an author to whom North American orni- 

 thology owes much, but one whom the A. 0. U. Committee decline to recognize on the ground 

 that he was not a strict binomialist.) 



S. s. arizo'nae. (Lat. of Arizona.) Arizona Chippixg Sparrow. Like an immature 

 S. socialis. Paler than this species, the ashiness in great measure brown; crown grayish- 

 brown streaked with dusky like back, and showing evident traces of rich chestnut, but never 

 becoming wholly chestnut; black frontlet lacking or obscure, and no definite ashy superciliary 

 line, the sides of crown merely lighter brown ; bill brown above, pale below. Western N. Am., 

 generally, from the Rocky Mts. to the Pacific ; S. in winter in Mexico and Lower California. 

 A curious form, as it were an arrested stage of socialis. Some specimens, with least chestnut 

 on head, look remarkably like hreweri, but this last is evidently smaller, without chestnut uu 

 head, and otherwise different. 



S. pusil'la. (Lat. pusilhts, petty, small ; ^jmsms, a little boy.) Field Sparrow. Bush 

 Sparrow. Adult ^ 9 : Bill pale reddish ; feet very pale ; crown* dull chestnut ; auriculars and 

 postocular stripe the same ; no decided black or whitish about head. Below, white, unmarked, 

 but much washed with pale brown on breast and sides ; sides of head and neck with some 

 vague brown markings; all the ashy parts of socialis replaced by pale brownish. Back bright 

 bay, with black streaks and some pale flaxen edgings ; inner secondaries similarly variegated ; 

 tips of median and greater coverts forming whitish cross-bars. Size of socialis, but more nearly 

 the colors of monticola. Length 5.25-5.75; extent 7.75-8.40 ; wing 2.30-2.50; tail quite as 

 much, or more, thus not shorter than wing, as it is in the last. Young for a short time streaked 

 below, as usual in SpizeUa. Eastern U. S. and Canadian border, strictly; hardly N. through- 

 out New England, W. only to edge of the Plains; migratory; breeds from the Carolinas and 

 corresponding latitudes northward, and winters from the same southward; very abundant in 

 fields, copses, and hedges, in flocks when not breeding. Nest indifferently in low bushes or on 

 ground; eggs 3-5, white or whitish, speckled with rusty-brown, 0.68 X 0.50. (.S*. agirstis of 

 2d-4th eds. of the Key, after Bartram: see remark under ^S". socialis.) 



S, p. arena'cea. (Lat. arenaceus, sandy.) Western Field Sparrow. Like the last, but 

 with the rufous replaced by brownish-ash ; tail somewhat longer. Length about 6.00; wing 

 2.70; tail 2.80. Western U. S., from Montana and N. Dakota to Texas and Louisiana. 

 This form, described as a migrant or winter resident in southern Texas (Chadbourne, Auk, 

 Apr. 1886, p. 248), was recognized by the name of S. agrestis arenacea in the First Appendix 

 of the Key, 1887, p. 875, and as S. pusilla arenacea by Mr. Ridgway in his Manual, 1887, 

 p. 420, though not admitted to the orig. ed. of the A. 0. U. List, 1886 ; but the Committee, 

 on reconsideration, endorsed its subspecific validity in the A. O. U. List, 2d ed. 1895, p. 233, 

 No. 563 a. It seems to me as well entitled to recognition as either of the other subspecies <if this 

 genus. It is the form of Field Sparrow which inhabits the Great Plains from Texas to Dakota 

 and Montana. See Auk, Oct. 1897, pp. 345-347, pi. 3. 



