NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 449 



resenting nearly every other bird to be found breeding througbout the 

 vast interior of the former Hudson's Bay Territory. The explorations 

 made by these gentlemen were thorough and continued through several 

 seasons, and, chiefly through the good efforts of Mr. Robert Kennicott, 

 all their valuable field notes and an immense amount of material were 

 brought together. 



" From the fact that no specimens of Zonotrtchia querula were ob- 

 tained throughout the explorations, which extended well into the Arctic 

 Circle, and began about the 54th parallel, I necessarily believed that 

 the summer home of Harris's sparrow, if properly looked for, will be 

 found along the foothills of the Bearpaw and Chief Mountains in Mon- 

 tana, along the Turtle Mountains in Dakota, and their centre of abun- 

 dance probably near Duck Mountain, Manitoba, as well as in suitable 

 localities in the territories of Alberta and Assiniboia, south of Lat. 54°. 



" During the summer of 1885, while I was stationed at Fort Cus- 

 ter, Montana, one of my men, who was well posted about the birds of 

 that region, and helped me to collect a good many, while out hunting 

 one day found a nest and four eggs of some Sparrow, without, unfor- 

 tunately, securing the parent, and brought them in for me. I saw at a 

 glance that these eggs were new to me, and visited the place where the 

 nest was found next day, in the hope of possibly still finding the own- 

 ers about the locality, but failed in this. The eggs in question differ 

 materially in coloration from those of the other species of Zonotrichia^ 

 as well as from those of the genera Passerella^ Melospiza^ and Pipilo^ 

 all of which are represented by good series in the National Museum 

 collection. 



"The nest was found June 24, 1885, in a dense willow thicket 

 close to the banks of Little Horn River, about one and a half miles 

 above the post. It was placed between several young willow twigs, 

 about eight or ten inches from the ground, compactly built of strips of 

 decayed willow bark, coarse grasses, etc., and lined with finer materials 

 of the same kind. Outwardly the nest was about four and a half 

 inches wide by three deep ; the inner cavity was two and a half inches 

 wide by two in depth. In its general make-up it resembled the aver- 

 age nest of a Passerella. The eggs contained small embryos. They re- 

 semble certain types of Cardinal's eggs {Cardinalis cardinalis) more 

 than anything else, but are consideraly smaller. There is no trace 

 of green whatever noticeable in their ground color. This green tint 

 is always found to a greater or less extent in all the eggs of the genera 

 Zonotrichia and Passerella^ and with rare exceptions in Melospiza as 

 well, while here, it is a creamy or buffy white, and the shell is also 



