304 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Zonotrichia albicoUis (Gmelin) 

 White-throated Sparrow 



Plate 82 



Fringilla albicollis Gmelin. Syst. Nat. 1789. 1:921 



Fringilla pennsylvanica DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 152, fig. 141 

 Zonotrichia albicollis A. 0. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 1910. p. 262. No. 558 



albicollis, Lat., white-throated 



Description. Adult: Slightly smaller than the White-crowned sparrow; 

 sides of the head and neck and upper breast ashy gray; chin and throat white, 

 edged on the sides by narrow black streaks, and sometimes along the lower 

 margin next the ashy gray of the breast; crown with alternate stripes of 

 blackish and white, the central stripe being a narrow white one with 2 

 broad black ones on either side; white stripe also from above the eye passing 

 to the side of the neck and a black stripe passing backward from the eye, 

 making altogether 4 black stripes and j white ones on the upper part of the 

 head; a yellow stripe from the nostril to just above the eye; upper parts streaked 

 with rufous, ocherous and blackish; wings with 2 whitish bars formed 

 by the tips of the coverts; lower back, rump and upper tail coverts plain 

 grayish brown; tail similar in color but slightly darker; sides and flanks 

 grayish brown; lower breast and abdomen white. Immature of both sexes 

 in the fall or during the second year show the same pattern of coloration, i 

 but the black and white stripes of the head are almost obsolete, the yellow in 

 front of the eye scarcely distinguishable at a distance of 10 feet, and the 

 throat almost the color of the dingy ashy gray breast ; otherwise like the 

 adult. Young in the first plumage: The forebreast streaked with dusky 

 and the general color of the lower parts more buffy. Females are usually 

 duller than the males of the same age. 



Length 6.6-6.8 inches; extent 9.5-10; wing 2.9; tail 2.86; exposed bill 

 .44; tarsus .9. 



Distribution. The breeding range of the White-throat extends from 

 northern Mackenzie, central Keewatin and southern Ungava to Alberta, 

 southern Montana, central Minnesota, southern Ontario and the mountains 

 of Pennsylvania and New York. It winters from the Ohio valley and 

 Connecticut, south to Florida and northeastern Mexico. 



In New York it nests in the Canadian zone of the Catskills and Adi- 

 rondacks, and is one- of the commonest birds breeding in our north woods. 

 A few also breed in the higher forests along the Pennsylvania border of 



