36 The Wilson Bulletin— No. 78. 



ALLEGED BREEDING OCCURRENCE OE THE LE 

 CONTE SPARROW IN ILLINOIS. 



BY P. B. PEABODY. 



An article dealing with the alleged breeding of the Le Conte 

 Sparrow, near Chicago, published by G. A. Abbott in the Wil- 

 son Bulletin No. 74, is a conspicuous example of the unwis- 

 dom of snap-shot identifications. In the first place, the A. O. 

 U. Check List of 1910 does not accredit the LeCcnte Sparrow 

 as breeding south of Southern Minnesota; (while even this 

 record appears to rest, as believed by some of us w'ho have 

 studied birds critically in Southern Minnesota, upon wholly in- 

 adequate indentifications.) In the second place, Mr. Abbott 

 naively throws a shadow over his own identifications by ad- 

 mitting that he "neglects small birds in his zeal to follow and 

 study the water fowl." In the third place, the location where 

 Mr. Abbott's alleged LeConte Sparrows attempted to rear 

 their young is, while sharply characteristic of the Henslow 

 Sparrow, (as well in Kansas as Ohio), exactly the sort of 

 location wherin the LeConte Sparrow never, so far as past 

 discoveries go. is known to nest. The site, also, in a "little 

 clump of coarse grass" is utterly alien to the LeConte habit. 

 Therefore, when Mr. Abbott expressly tells us that he "did not 

 catch a glimpse of" the male parent which lured him on by its 

 ventriloquism while the female flushed at ten feet ; and 

 dropped, after short flight, into cover, how can he expect the 

 critical world of bird students to accredit his find of a "neat 

 little nest," with their five eggs "showing a distinct individual- 

 ity," to a species not known to nest anywhere in the region in 

 question ? The v/riter having taken more sets of eggs of the 

 I^Conte Sparrow than any other ornithologist, living or dead, 

 and being intimately and critically familiar with the nesting 

 habits and conditions of this exceedingly furtive species, he 

 may be pardoned in speaking dogmatically concerning Mr. 

 Abbott's manifestly delic'ous but palpably futile find. One 

 must confess that the nest, as decribed by Mr. Abbott, is strik- 



