Harris Birds of the Kansas City Region. 297 



CHONDESTES GRAMMACUS GRAMMACUS (Say). Lark Sparrow. 

 Fairly common summer resident. 



The Lark Finch may be expected from the 19th to 28th of 

 April (April 10, 1892, earliest), remaining until late Septem- 

 ber. It is generally distributed over the entire county near the 

 ledges, or barrens above the streams, where the soil is thin and 

 there are small scattered trees. It may be looked for on the 

 farming country adjacent to the bluff regions and in the upper 

 Blue Valley. It is rather rare in Swope Park, though one pair 

 nested on the rifle range in June, 1917. 



The Lark Sparrow is a ground nester and lays its eggs late 

 in May. It is a beautiful songster and a conspicuously marked 

 bird and may not be easily overlooked. 



ZONOTRICHIA QUERULA (Nuttall). Harris's Sparrow. 

 Very common migrant; fairly common winter resident. 



So far as the writer is aware, the district embraced in this 

 list has given to science but two birds; namely, the Harris's 

 Sparrow and the Bell's Vireo. Harris's Sparrow may properly 

 be called Jackson County's own bird, since it was discovered 

 here, very possibly within the present corporate limits of Kan- 

 sas City itself. In late April, 1834, Thomas Nuttall, who with 

 Townsend was making a transcontinental journey in the 

 interest of science, discovered, "a few miles west of Independ- 

 ence, ' ' on the road to "Westport, a new bird which he named the 

 Mourning Finch. Not until 1840, when Volume 1 of the second 

 edition of his "Manual of the Birds of the United States and 

 Canada" was published, did he describe the finch and give it 

 its systematic name. The fact of a later vernacular name be- 

 coming current is traceable to an oversight of Audubon, who, 

 not knowing of Nuttall 's discovery, thought he had found a new 

 bird near Leavenworth on his memorable trip up the Missouri 

 River in 1843. He named the bird in honor of his much es- 

 teemed friend and companion on the trip, Edward Harris, which 

 name has been recognized by the American Ornithologists' Union 

 and thus made permanent. 



The Harris's Sparrow makes its first appearance here late in 

 the first week of October and is present in varying abundance 

 until late in November, after which only the wintering birds 

 are to be found. If the winter be exceptionally severe, as in 



