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THE RUSTY SONG SPARROW. 
favorite building site is amid the debris of last year’s flood water, caught 
in the willow clumps of creek or lagoon. With high boots one may wade 
the bed of a brushy creek near Yakima and count certainly on finding a 
Merrill Song Sparrow’s nest every five or ten rods. 
No. 57. 
RUSTY SONG SPARROW. 
A. O. U. No. 581 e. Melospiza melodia morphna Oberholser. 
Description.—A dults: Somewhat like M. m. montana but coloration much 
more rufescent, general color of upperparts rich rusty brown, ashy gray of M. m. 
montana represented by rusty olive and this reduced or (in some plumages) 
almost wanting; black mesial streaks of scapulars, etc., much reduced, indistinct 
or sometimes wanting; underparts heavily and broadly streaked with chestnut 
usually without black shaft lines; sides and flanks washed with olivaceous. 
“Young, slightly rufescent bister brown above, the back streaked with blackish, 
beneath dull whitish or very pale buffy grayish, the chest, sides and flanks more 
or less tinged with buffy or pale fulvous and streaked with sooty brownish’ 
(Ridgway). Length about 6.40 (162.5); wing 2.60 (66); tail 2.56 (65); bill 
CON (27) tansusi O77 (ua) 
Recognition Marks.—Sparrow size; rusty brown coloration; heavily spot- 
ting of underparts distinctive save for the Passerella iliaca group from which it 
is further distinguished by smaller size and varied head markings. 
Nesting.—Nest: As in preceding. Eggs: usually 4, averaging darker in 
coloration and larger than in M. m. merrilli. Av. size, .87 x .63 (22.1 x 16). 
Season: second week in April to July ; two or three broods. 
General Range.—‘Breeding from extreme southern portion of Alaska 
through British Columbia (including Vancouver Island) to western Oregon 
(north of Rogue River Mountains) ; in winter, south to southern California (Fort 
Tejon, etc.)”” (Ridgway). 
Range in Washington.—Common resident west of the Cascades; found 
chiefly in vicinity of water. 
Authorities.—? Audubon, Orn. Biog. V. 1839, 22. M. rufina, Baird, Rep. 
Pac. R. R. Surv. [X. 1858, p. 481. (T). C&S. Lt. Rh. Kb. Ra. Kk. B. E. 
Specimens.—U. of W. P. Prov. B. BN. E. 
IF ONE were to write a book about the blessings of common things, 
an early chapter must needs be devoted to the Song Sparrow. How blessed 
a thing it is that we do not all of us have to go to greenhouses for our 
flowers, nor to foreign shores for birds. Why, there is more lavish love- 
liness in a dandelion than there is in an imported orchid; and I fancy we 
should tire of the Nightingale, if we had to exchange for him our sweet 
poet of common day, the Song Sparrow. 
