DESCRIPTIVE LIST 247 



The nests are often placed in natural depressions in the banks of roads, and are 

 constructed of rootlets, sometimes with the addition of moss, and are lined with 

 hair, sometimes mixed with fine grass. The eggs are usually four, laid any time 

 from May to July. They are whitish in ground-color, and more or less speckled 

 with reddish brown. Size .82 x .60. 



We have little information as to the time when the Snowbirds leave the higher 

 levels for the low country. Kopman was in the mountains in 1898 as late as Sep- 

 tember 28, and saw none lower than Cranberry, 3,200 feet elevation. At Andrews, 

 Cherokee County, where those from the neighboring mountains might be expected 

 to winter, Collett's dates of arrival and departure show no material difference from 

 Raleigh records of the Slate-colored Junco. 



Genus Peucaea (Aud.) 

 241. Peucsea aestivalis bachmani (Aud.). BACHMAN'S SPARROW. 



Description. Upperparts largely chestnut, chest buffy; underparts unstreaked; yellow on 

 edge of wing, but none on head. Extreme measurements of 6 Raleigh specimens: L., 5.756.15; 

 W., 2.25-2.50; T., 2.42-2.50. 



Range. South Atlantic and Gulf States and lower Mississippi Valley. 



Range in North Carolina. -Whole State, east of the mountains. 



FIG. 196. BACHMAN'S SPARROW. 



Bachman's Sparrow, a distinctly southern species, is found in summer irregu- 

 larly throughout practically all that portion of the State lying east of the moun- 

 tains, and to some extent at least in the mountain valleys. 



At Raleigh it is quite rare, as also at Chapel Hill, but at Greensboro and Guil- 

 ford College it is locally common. It has been found breeding in Buncombe 

 County by Cairns, and has been taken or observed in New Hanover, Craven, and 

 Macon counties, in the last of which Brewster found it near Franklin in 1885. 

 Bruner and Feild observed it July 12, 1911, at Coot's Gap, McDowell County, 

 3,500 feet elevation. In late June, 1909, C. S. Brimley found it singing quite 

 commonly in the sparse pine woods near Southern Pines, and Pearson found it 

 very common in pine woods in August of the same year in Brunswick County, it be- 

 ing apparently the most common species. 



