I ^O Peabody, Nesting Habits of Leconte's Sparrozv. [April 



slightest evidence of its presence. One must learn just what sort 

 of 'cover' is favored by the bird or he will fail to flush it even 

 with minutest search, as the bird, save during the early and the 

 late hours of the day, even in the height of its courtship, is con- 

 spicuously silent. I may state, in illustration of this fact, that I 

 have searched a whole day, on favorable ground, without meeting 

 the bird ; while at dusk after starting home, I counted fifteen 

 distinct recurrences of its note along the wayside in going two 

 miles through the meadows. 



The date of its springtime arrival, as noted for the past four 

 years, will show how elusive this sparrow is, these dates being 

 April 28, May 12, April 25, and June 2. Probably about the 20th 

 of April, in average seasons, will find A. leco?itei at the Interna- 

 tional Boundary Line. By the 12th of May it has grown com- 

 mon, if it is to become common ; and it practically leaves northern 

 Minnesota by the i oth of October, though a few stragglers may 

 be found somewhat later. 



Most of its time is spent in the dense dead grass, though it 

 feeds, in the morning and at sunset, where the living grass is 

 scanty. At rare intervals during the day, in breeding time, the 

 male may be seen peering above the grass-tops, as he clings to 

 some slender willow stem, trilling his thin, wiry, yet intensely 

 penetrating and not unmusical r-r-f-sz-z-z-t ; with which laconic, 

 cicada-like note he also greets the rising sun and the closing day. 

 I have detected but two other notes : the sharp and exceed- 

 ingly shrill tsip which is ceaselessly iterated, at short intervals 

 when an intruder is near the nest, and the love-note which the 

 male bird trills as he balances himself on tremulous wings a dozen 

 feet or so above the ground, impetuously reeling out a dry, creaky 

 eelree-eelree-eeb'cc-eelree. This note must be rarely indulged in, as 

 I recall having heard it but twice. 



Leconte's Sparrow nests where dead grass is thickest. All 

 along the Red River are still wide stretches of prairie, the low- 

 land sections of which abound in lower spots with luxuriant growths 

 of heavier grass and vetch. It is in such places that Leconte's 

 Sp.irrow breeds. This bird is exceedingly local. Every such bit 

 of meadow as I have described will have its pair of birds ; and an 

 expert can repeatedly flush the male, and at times the female, 



