152 THE SOOTY FOX SPARROW. 
No. 62. 
SOOTY FOX SPARROW. 
A. O. U. No. 585a (part). Passerella iliaca fuliginosa Ridgway. 
Description.—Adults: Upperparts, sides of head, neck, and lateral under- 
parts nearly uniform dark brown (sepia brown—‘‘sooty” not inappropriate), 
warming slightly upon exposed surfaces of wings and upon rump and outer 
edges of rectrices; below white save for under tail-coverts, which have clear 
buffy wash, everywhere save on middle belly heavily marked with large, chiefly 
triangular, spots of the color of back or darker—spotting heaviest on breast 
where nearly confluent. Bill black above shading on sides into yellow of lower 
mandible; feet pale ruddy brown or wine-color. Length (of a single fresh 
specimen) 7.45 (191.7); wing (av.) 3.21 (81.5); tail 2.91 (77); bill .48 (12.2); 
tarsus 1.02 (25.9). 
Recognition Marks.—Sparrow to Chewink size; uniform sooty brown col- 
oration of head and upperparts; heavily spotted below with sepia or blackish; 
darker above and more heavily spotted below than any migrant form of the 
P. 1. unalaschensis group. 
Nesting.—Nest: a bulky structure with a broad, flat brim, of mosses, grasses, 
twigs, woody fibers, weed-stalks, often heavily lined with fine dry grass of 
contrasting color and with an inner mat of fur, hair or feathers; placed at 
moderate heights in thickets or saplings; measures externally 6 inches across 
by 3 deep, internally 2% across by 154 deep. Eggs: 4, greenish blue, spotted, 
or spotted and clouded, with reddish brown. Av. size, .94.x.68 (23.8 x 17.3). 
Season: May-July; two broods. 
General Range.—Summer resident in coast region of British Columbia and 
northwestern Washington; in winter south along the coast to San Francisco. 
Range in Washington.—Breeding on the San Juan Islands and upon the 
northern and western shores of the Olympic Peninsula; not uncommon migrant 
on Puget Sound. 
Authorities.—(?) Baird, Rep. Pac., etc., 489 part; (7) Cooper and Suckley 
Rep. Pac., etc., 204 part; (?) Sclater Cat. Am. Birds, 1862, 119 part (Simiahmoo 
[sic] ) ; Ridgway, Auk, XVI. Jan. 1899, 36 (Neah Bay). Kb. E. 
Specimens.—Proy. BN. E. 
THE mystery of the Fox Sparrow clears a little as we move northward 
on Puget Sound, and may even resolve itself one day as we spend a lazy 
July in camp on one of the San Juan islands. We are puzzled, as the tent 
pegs are being driven, by certain sprightly songs bursting out now here, now 
there, from the copse. We labor under a sence of avian surveillance as we 
gather fuel from the beach, but the songs are too joyous and limpid to make 
precise connections with anything in previous experience. It is not till the 
cool of the evening, when we seek the spring, back in the depths of the 
thicket, that we come upon a fair birdmaiden slyly regaling herself upon a 
