THE AUK: 



A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF 



ORNITHOLOGY. 



VOL. XVIII. April, 1901. No. 2. 



NESTING HABUrS OF LECONTE'S SPARROW. 



BY P. B. PEABODY. 

 Plate III. 



This weird, mouse-like creature I met in the Red River Valley 

 of Kittson County, Minnesota, on May 27, 1S96. Two specimens 

 were taken in a timothy tield redeemed from marshy meadow, and 

 swarming at the time with Red-winged Blackbirds, Soras, Western 

 Savanna Sparrows, Wilson's Phalaropes, and Bobolinks, along 

 with, the water fowl and other larger birds. I had previously 

 met Leconte's Sparrow, several times, on the prairies of Eastern 

 Kansas. It proved to be abundant during i8g6 in the Red River 

 Valley, the season being a wet one. It was especially common 

 along the stretches of willow-dotted meadow prairie, this sort of 

 habitat proving to be its favorite one. Not, however, until the 

 summer of 1897 did I become really familiar with the ways of 

 this most elusive bird. This proved to be the season of its 

 apparent greatest abundance, of late, and most of my time afield 

 was spent in the study of Leconte's Sparrow. 



Subsequent seasons have shown that constant and very critical 

 attention must be paid to the habits of this bird if one would become 

 familiar with its summer life. One might, for example, search its 

 familiar haunts day after day during the daytime, at the beginning 

 of the period of its arrival in the North, without detecting the 



