THE NUTTALL SPARROW.  —> 
135 
stronghold, and they are sometimes so hard put to it for shelter that they 
resort in numbers to the sage-brush, where they affect great secretiveness. 
These handsome and courtly gentlemen with their no less interesting, 
if somewhat plainer, wives are far more reserved than their talents would 
warrant. Our approach has sent a score of them scurrying into cover, a 
neglected rose-briar patch which screens a fence, and now we cannot see 
one of them. An occasional sharp dzimk of warning or protest comes out 
of the screen, or a suppressed titter of excitement, as two birds jostle in their 
effort to keep out of sight. We are being scrutinized, however, by twenty 
pairs of sharp eyes, and when our probation is ended, now one bird and now 
another hops up to an exposed branch to see and be seen. 
What distinguished foreigners they are, indeed, with their white crowns, 
slightly raised and sharply offset by the black stripes which flank them,— 
Russians, perhaps, with shakos of sable and ermine. The bird has an aristo- 
cratic air which is unmistakable; and, once he has deigned to show himself, 
appears to expect deference as his due. What a pity they will not make 
their homes with us, but must needs go further north! 
As diligently as I have searched for this species, | have never found a 
specimen in the summer months’, nor is there any record of the bird’s nest- 
ing in Washington. ‘This is the more remarkable in that the type form 
(Z. leucophrys) breeds extensively “thruout the high mountain districts of 
the western United States” (Ridgway), exclusive of Washington and Oregon, 
southward to the San Francisco Mountains of Arizona, “northward to north- 
ern California (Mount Shasta, etc.).’” In view of this, one may feel free 
to suggest that the Camp Harney record”, referred to gambelu, is really 
referable to the typical form, and that as such it represents a northern exten- 
sion of /eucophrys, rather than a southern extension of gambelit. 
No. 54. 
NUTTALL’S SPARROW. 
A. O. U. No. 554b.  Zonotrichia leucophrys nuttalli Ridgw. 
Synonyms.—Formerly called GAMBEL’s SPARROW. WHITE-CROWNED SPAR- 
ROW (name properly confined to Z. leucophrys). CROWN SPARROW. 
Description.—Adults: Like preceding but general tone of coloration much 
darker ; streaks of back and scapulars deepest brown or blackish; general ground- 
color of upperparts light olive-gray; median crown-stripe narrower, dull white ; 
a. Until the season of 1908. See ante under “Migrations.” 
b. “(?) Bendire, Proc. Bost. Soc. N. H. XIX., 1877, 118 (Camp Harney, e. Oregon, breeding)” 
(Ridgway). 
