Scott’s Sparrow 385 
This Sparrow has only recently been detected in Colorado. Warren 
took a single female near Springfield in Baca co. in the south-eastern 
part of the State, May 27th, 1905. As its breast was bare of feathers 
he considered it might be incubating. That it does breed in the 
State is confirmed by Hersey and Rockwell, who found a nest near Barr 
in Adams co., on July 14th, 1907, and subsequently observed several 
other examples of this species. It is probably not uncommon through- 
out the dry plains of the eastern part of the State. 
Habits.—Cassin’s Sparrow is typically a bird of the 
arid plains dotted with mesquite, grass and low bushes. 
It is shy and retiring, but the male, in the breeding 
season at least, is one of the sweetest of songsters. It 
sometimes sings from a perch, but more often it rises 
in the air some twenty feet or more, then hovers and 
drops back on to its perch. Hersey and Rockwell found 
the nest well concealed in low rabbit-brush (Gutierrezia), 
and only visible from straight above ; it was placed in 
the bush but rested on the ground, and was constructed 
of dry grass-stems and strips of bark, and lined with 
finer material of the same kind. The nest was rather 
deeply cupped and slightly rimmed in. The eggs, four 
in number, were pure crystalline white and rather pointed ; 
they average °78 x ‘57. 
Genus AIMOPHILA. 
Small, Sparrow-like birds resembling Peucea, but with a still shorter 
and more rounded wing, the ninth (outer) primary being shorter than 
the third and the tail always longer than the wing. Edge of the wing 
not yellow. 
An extensive genus, with which Peucea is merged by Ridgway, 
ranging over south-western United States and Mexico to Costa Rica, 
chiefly at high elevations in the south. One species only is a straggler 
to Colorado. 
Scott’s Sparrow. <Aimophila ruficeps scotit. 
A.O.U. Checklist no 580a—Colorado Record—Howell 05, p. 210. 
Description.—Male—Above dark chestnut-brown, more rufous on 
the crown, all the feathers edged with ashy-grey ; the rump and sides 
of the head nearly pure ashy-grey ; tail and wings pale dusky, edged 
BB 
