Alleged Breeding of LeConte Sparrows in III. 37 



ingly le-conte-nest-like. One might say more were that nest 

 in hand. As to the eggs, however, one must enter a prompt 

 non sequitur. There is no "distinct individuahty" about the 

 eggs of the LeConte Sparrow. Moreover, I have yet to see 

 an egg of this species bearing bright, or half-bright, colora- 

 tions. (Grays, lilacs and dull-browns normally prevail.) And 

 the "ashy-grey" ground is not in the least diagnostic ; indeed, 

 I do not recall ever having seen a sec, or an egg, of the Le 

 Conte Sparrow having such a ground-color. The writer has 

 one set in which the ground color is probably bluish ; as, in at 

 least a faint degree, are a possible majority of eggs of this 

 species. The set above rcferred-to quite strikingly re- 

 sembles certain types of eggs of the Swamp Sparrow ; 

 save that the blotchings are exceedingly obscure ; with an 

 effect that might almost be called ii marbling. At the anti- 

 podes of this set is one which is of a clear, pale blue-green, 

 with tiny spots over the entire surface. But neither of these 

 sets is typical. The bulk of typical eggs of the LeConte Spar- 

 row have, with the decided bluish-white or bluish-grey brown 

 tint, a tendency rather to spotting than to either blotching or 

 to stippling. Mr. Abbott's Henslow-Sparrow-find conforms, 

 in every detail, (excepting, possibly, in the brighter ground- 

 tint of the eggs), to like conditions by me in Kansas. 



When will we. all of us learn that there is nothing diagnos- 

 tic as a rule, in the matter of mere shapes, with eggs of any 

 and all Sparrows ? Some of my series of eggs of the LeConte 

 Sparrow are fairly subpyriform ; many are ovate ; and some 

 almost oval. But there is no specific shape. The LeConte 

 Sparrow never provably nests on upland rolling ground. And 

 it never nests in isolated grass-clumps. The locations are uni- 

 formly, so far as I have observed, in wet, willow-studded up- 

 land meadows ; wherein are perfect wildernesses of prone dead 

 grass. I never found but one nest in any other sort of cover, 

 that one having been ensconsed, (in just such a meadow as I 

 have cited), on a slight bog out of which grew a thistle-, in the 

 midst of living and dead grasses. (This nest had the added 

 idiosyncrasy of being at the highest elevation in my experience* 



