THE KADIAK FOX SPARROW. pee 149 
malar region white flecked with grayish brown; under tail-coverts grayish brown 
centrally, broadly margined with white or buffy white; middle of throat and 
breast usually with a few small spots of brown; maxilla dusky on culmen, paler 
on tomia; mandible pale colored (yellowish in winter, pinkish or liliaceous in 
summer ) ; iris brown; legs and feet brown” ( Ridgway).| 
Description.—‘Similar to P. i. unalaschensis but much browner and more 
uniform in color above (back, etc., warm sepia brown instead of grayish brown or 
brownish gray) ; spots on chest, etc., larger and deeper brown; under tail coverts 
more strongly tipped with buff” (Ridgway). Length of adult male (skins) : 6.78 
(172.5); wing 3.30 (83.8); tail 2.92 (74.1); bill .50 (12.7) ; tarsus 1.02 (25.9). 
Recognition Marks.—Sparrow size; uniform brownish coloration of back; 
underparts heavily spotted with brown; browner than unalaschensis but duller 
than townsendi; larger than annectens; color of crown unbroken as compared 
with Rusty Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia morphna), also bird larger. 
General Range.—‘‘Kadiak Island, Alaska, in summer; in winter south along 
the coast slope to southern California.” 
Range in Washington.—\inter resident and migrant west of Cascades. 
Authorities—Passerella townsendii Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. IX. 1858. 
p. 489 part (Whitbeys Id., winter)—Fide Ridgway. 
A singular fatality (or, more strictly, want of fatality) has attended our 
efforts to secure a representative series of migrating Fox Sparrows on Puget 
Sound. The birds have only revealed themselves in city parks or otherwise in 
the absence of a gun. It is practically certain that all the Alaskan forms described 
by Mr. Ridgway occur here regularly in winter and during migrations but so 
unobtrusive are the birds and so dense the cover afforded that we have been 
completely baffled in our attempts, and find ourselves obliged, at the last moment, 
to fall back upon Mr. Ridgway’s original descriptions in Birds of North and 
Middle America, Vol. I. (p. 389 ff), and for the use of these we desire again to 
express our grateful obligations. 
For additional remarks on the Shumagin Fox Sparrow (P. i. unalaschensis) 
and the Yakutat Fox Sparrow (P. is annectens) see Hypothetical List in Volume 
IL. of this work. 
FIELD identification of the Fox Sparrows by means of binoculars 
may not command the respect of precise scientists. But there he sat, placid, 
at twenty feet, in a well-lighted grove on the Nisqually Flats, on the roth 
day of February, 1906. See; twenty divided by eight (the magnifying 
power of the glasses) equals two and a half. At arm’s length I held him, 
while I noted that the upperparts were dull hair-brown thruout, not notice- 
ably brightening on wings and tail but perhaps a shade darker on the crown; 
underparts heavily but clearly spotted with a warmer brown—so, obviously 
and indisputably, neither a Sooty nor a Townsend. Shumagin (P. 1. una- 
laschensis) perhaps; but Ridgway* enters all Puget Sound winter records 
as Kadiaks, and we must follow the gleam until we are able to perfect the 
light of our own little lanterns by the flash of a shot-gun. 
a. Birds of North and Mid. Am., Vol. I., p. 391. 
