THE KADIAK FOX SPARROW. 149 



malar region white flecked with grayish brown ; under tail-coverts grayish brown 

 centrally, broadly margined with white or huffy 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. iiiuilaschensis but much browner and more 

 uniform in color above (back, etc., warm sepia brown instead of grayish brown or 

 brownish gray) ; s])ots on chest, etc., larger and deeper brown ; under tail coverts 

 more strongly tii)ped with buff" ( Ridgway ). Length of adult male (skins) : 6.78 

 (172.5) ; wing 3.30 (S3.8) ; tail 2.92 (74.1) ; bill .50 (12.7) ; tarsus 1.02 (25.9). 



Recognition Marks. — Sparrow size; uniform brownish coloration of back; 

 undcrparts heavily spotted with brown; browner than uiialascliensis but duller 

 tnan toicnsoidi: larger than anncctciis; color of crown unbroken as compared 

 with Rusty Song Sparrow (Melospha melodia luorphna), also bird larger. 



General Range. — "Kadiak Island, Alaska, in suninier ; in winter south along 

 the coast sl(i])e to southern California." 



Range in Washington. — \\'intcr resident and migrant west of Cascades. 



Authorities. — I'asscrcUa tozviiscndii Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. IX. 1858. 

 p. 489 part ( W'hitbeys Id., winter). — Fide Ridgway. 



A singular fatality (or, more strictly, icaiit 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 aft'orded that we have been 

 completely baffled in our attempts, and tind ourselves obliged, at the last moiuent, 

 to fall back upon Air. Ridgway 's original descriptions in Mirds of Xorth 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. uiialascliensis) 

 and the Yakulat Fox S])arrovv (P. is annectcns) see Hypothetical List in Volume 

 II. of this work. 



I'^IELD identification of the Fox Sparrows by means of binocular.- 

 may not command the respect of precise scientists. Pnit tliere he sat, placid, 

 at twenty feet, in a well-lighted grove on the Xisqiially Flats, on the loth 

 day of February, 1906. See; twenty divided by eight (the magnifying 

 power of the gla.sses ) equals two and a half. At arm's length I held liim, 

 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 s|)otted with a warmer brown — so, obviously 

 and indisputably, neither a Sooty nor a Townsend. Shumagin (P. i. uiia- 

 lascliensis) perhaps; but Ridgway* enters all Puget Sound winter records 

 as Kadiaks, and we niusl follow the gleam until we are able to perfect the 

 light of our own little lanterns by the flash of a shot-gun. 



Birds of Xorth and Mid, Am.. Vol, I., p. 391 



