146 
THE LINCOLN SPARROW. _ 
of head and neck and remaining underparts creamy buff, everywhere marked by 
elongated and sharply defined black streaks; usually an abrupt dusky spot on 
center of breast; bill blackish above, lighter below, feet brownish. Length about 
5.75 (146.1); av. of six specimens; wing 2.48 (63); tail 2.11 (53.6); bill 
.40 (10.2). 
Recognition Marks.—Warbler size; bears general resemblance to Song 
Sparrow, from which it is clearly distinguished by buffy chest-band, and by nar- 
row, sharp streaks of breast and sides. 
Nesting.—Nest: much like that of Rusty Song Sparrow, of dried grasses, 
etc., usually on ground, rarely in bushes. Eggs: 3 or 4, greenish white spotted 
and blotched with chestnut and grayish. Av. size, 80 x .58 (20.3 x 14.7). Season: 
June, July; two (?) broods. 
General Range.—North America at large breeding chiefly north of the 
United States (at least as far as the Yukon Valley) and in the higher parts of 
the Rocky Mountains and the Cascade-Sierras; south in winter to Panama. 
Range in Washington.—Imperfectly made out—probably not rare spring 
and fall migrant, at least west of the Cascades; found breeding in the Rainier 
National Park. 
Authorities.—[‘Lincoln’s Finch,’ Johnson, Rep. Gov. W. T. 1884 (1885), 
22.| Bowles and Dawson, Auk, XXV. Oct. 1908, p. 483. 
Specimens.—(U. of W.) Prov. B. 
MODESTY is a beautiful trait, and, I suppose, if we had always to 
choose between the brazen arrogance of the English Sparrow and the shy 
timorousness of this bird-afraid-of-his-shadow, we should feel obliged to 
accept the latter. But why should a bird of such inconspicuous color steal 
silently thru our forests and slink along our streams with bated breath as 
if in mortal dread of the human eye? Are we then such hobgloblins ? 
Thrice only have I seen this bird, and then in northern Ohio. On the 
first occasion two of us followed a twinkling suspicion along a shadowy 
woodland stream for upwards of a hundred yards. Finally we neared the 
edge of the woods. There was light! exposure! recognition! With an 
inward groan the flitting shape quitted the last brush-pile and rose twenty 
feet to a tree-limb. Just an instant—but enough for our purpose—and he 
had whisked over our heads, hot-wing upon the dusky back trail. That 
same May day we came upon a little company of these Sparrows halted by 
the forbidding aspect of Lake Erie, and dallying for the nonce in the dense 
thickets which skirted a sluggish tributary. Here they skulked like moles, 
and it was only by patient endeavor that we were able to cut out a single 
bird and constrain it to intermittent exposure at the edge of the stream. 
Here, at intervals, from the opposite bank, we eagerly took note of its head- 
stripes, pale streaked breast, and very demure airs, and listened to snatches 
of a sweet but very weak song, with which the bird favored us in spite of 
