THE DESERT SPARROW. 
I14 
habits these little fellows approach more closely to colonizing than any other 
members of the Sparrow family. Large tracts of land, apparently suitable, 
are left untenanted; while, in a near-by field of a few acres, half a dozen 
pairs may be found nesting. More recently the birds have accepted the 
shelter of irrigated tracts upon the East-side, and their numbers would seem 
almost certainly to be upon the increase. 
To ascertain the presence of these birds, the ear-test is best, when once 
the song is mastered. The latter consists of a series of lisping and buzzing 
notes, fine only in the sense of being small, and quite unmusical, fst, tsut, 
isu weeszstsubut. ‘The sound instantly recalls the eastern Grasshopper Spar- 
row (Coturniculus savannarum passerinus), who is an own cousin; but the 
preliminary and closing flourishes are a good deal longer than those of the 
related species, and the buzzing strain shorter. 
Love-making goes by example as well as by season, so that when the 
choral fever is on they are all at it. The males will sing from the ground 
rather than keep silence, altho they prefer a weed-top, a fence post, or even a 
convenient tree. The female listens patiently near by, or if she tries to slip 
away for a bit of food, the jealous lover recalls her to duty by an ardent chase. 
The nest is settled snugly in the dead grasses of last year’s ungathered 
crop, and is thus both concealed from above and upborne from below, and 
is itself carefully done in fine dead grasses. 
The sitting bird does not often permit a close approach, but rises from 
the nest at not less than thirty feet. The precise spot is, therefore, very 
difficult to locate. If discovered the bird will potter about with fine affection 
of listlessness, and seems to consider that she has done her full duty in not 
showing the eggs. 
No. 44. 
DESERT SPARROW. 
A. O. U. No. 573 a. Amphispiza bilineata deserticola Ridgw. 
Description 4 dults:; Above brownish gray, browner on middle of back 
and on wings; a conspicuous white superciliary stripe bounded narrowly by black 
above and separated from white malar stripe (not reaching base of bill) by gray 
on sides of head; lores, anterior portion of malar region, chin, throat and chest 
centrally black, the last named with convex posterior outline; remaining under- 
parts white tinged with grayish on sides and flanks; tail blackish, the outer 
web of outermost rectrix chiefly white, the inner web with white spot on tip, 
second rectrix (sometimes third or even fourth) tipped with white on inner web. 
Bill dusky; feet and legs brownish black. Young birds like adults but without 
black pattern of head markings; chin and throat white or flecked with grayish; 
breast streaked with same and back faintly streaked with dusky; some buffy 
