Vo, 'i'9i9 XVI ] Harris, Notes on Harris's Sparrow. 189 



able data in his interesting article on the bird in 'Birds of the 

 Northwest,' but was able to add nothing in determining the bounds 

 of its habitat, which he gave as "Region of the Missouri. East 

 to Eastern Iowa." 



It was not until ten years later that enough information had 



accumulated to warrant an attempt at defining the limits of its 



range and the periods of its migration. This was done by the 



painstaking and accurate Wells W. Cooke in the first volume of 



'The Auk,' in 1884. In this article, 'Distribution and Migration 



of Zonotrichia querula,' he was able only in a very general and 



indefinite way to give the western and southern extent of the 



range, but the eastern limits remain practically as he defined them. 



In 1913 Professor Cooke noted the interesting peculiarity of 



the migration of the Harris's Sparrow in the interval that elapses 



after the first spring advance. He states ' that the birds become 



common along the Missouri River in northwestern Iowa soon after 



the middle of March and yet it is not until early May that they 



are noted a few miles further north in southeastern South Dakota 



and southwestern Minnesota. He adds that the dates suggest 



the probability that these March birds have wintered unnoticed 



in the thick bushes of the bottomlands not far distant, and have 



been attracted to the open country by the first warm days of 



spring. This theory is borne out by the facts as observed by the 



writer in the Kansas City region. The birds are present in this 



vicinity during even the most severe winters, but keep to the dense 



shelter of the Missouri bottoms. During mild and open winters 



a few scattered flocks may even spend the entire season until 



spring in the hedges and weed patches of the prairie country. 



This Sparrow has always attracted attention in the field by its 

 large size and conspicuously handsome appearance, as well as by 

 its sprightly and vivacious manner and querulous notes, but it 

 has seldom been the subject of special notice in the literature of 

 American birds. Its bibliography is chiefly confined to diagnostic 

 listing in formal works on ornithology, brief annotations in faunal 

 lists, and occasional mention in published field notes. 



During the thirty-four years that have elapsed since Prof. Cooke's 



1 The Migration of North American Sparrows. Compiled hy Prof. W. W. Cooke, chiefly 

 from data in the Biological Survey. Bird Lore, 1913, p. 301. 



