S90 Field Museum of Natural History — Zoology, Vol. IX. 



most delightful songsters, the notes being strikingly clear and melo- 

 dious. As Mr. Ridgway describes it "This song is composed of a 

 series of chants, each syllable rich, loud, and clear, interspersed with 

 emotional trills. ' ' 



It breeds in May and June. The nest is built on the ground or in 

 low trees or bushes, and is composed chiefly of dried grass. The eggs 

 are 3 to 5, white or faintly bluish white, marked, speckled and lined 

 chiefly at the larger end with black and dark brown; size about .70 x 

 .50 inches. 



The Field Museum collection contains the following sets of eggs 

 of this species taken in northern Illinois: 4 eggs, Joliet, May 21, 

 1906; 5 eggs, Chicago, May 20, 1905; 4 eggs, Chicago, May 20, 1905. 



Genus ZONOTRICHIA Swainson. 



255. Zonotrichia querula (Nutt.). 

 Harris's Sparrow. 



Distr. : Middle United States, from Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa, 

 west to middle Kansas, the Dakotas, and plains east of the Rocky 

 Mountains, and from Texas north to Hudson Bay and Assiniboia; 

 breeds north of the United States. 



Adult male: Crown and throat, black; sides of head, grayish buff; 

 back, brown, streaked with dark brown; sides of body, olive buff, 

 streaked with dusky; belly and lower breast, white; under tail 

 coverts, pale buff; bill, reddish brown. 



Female: Similar, but with much less black marking on head and 

 throat, often broken and irregular. 



Length, 7.25; wing, 3.40; tail, 3.50; bill, .45. 



Mr. E. W. Nelson considered this species a rare visitant in north- 

 eastern Illinois. Prof. Ridgway (Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornitholog- 

 ical Club, 1880, p. 30) records two specimens taken by Mr. W. H. 

 Garman in Illinois, one at Bloomington in the spring of 1877 and 

 another at Normal on the 14th of November, 1879. He also states 

 that according to Mr. H. K. Coale, three specimens were colltected at 

 La Crosse, Wisconsin, October 3, 1883 (Orn. of Illinois, Vol. I, i88g, 

 p. 267). Mr. James O. Dunn procured a specimen east of Riverdale, 

 Illinois, which he observed in a growth of small willows (Auk, 1895, 

 p. 39S). Mr. Frank M. Woodruff quotes Mr. Ruthven Deane as hav- 

 ing observed a male of this species feeding with a flock of sparrows 

 in the south end of Lincoln Park, May 11, 1904 (Birds of the Chicago 

 Area, 1907, p. 139). Mr. Otho C. Poling states he procured two 



