SELL'S SPARROW. 143 



Fort Brown. Mr. Geo. B. Sennett, the painstaking and accurate describer of the orni- 

 thology of the lower Rio Grande, gives the following description: "Found at Lomita 

 Ranch in even greater numbers than at Hidalgo the season before. It is the sweetest 

 singer of all the birds that frequent the thorny bushes of that region, and I have wil- 

 lingly undergone a broiling sun and considerable laceration from thorns and spines of 

 cactus to listen to its notes. I found three sets of its eggs in April at Lomita. Several 

 nests were discovered in May, but they all contained young. My observations of its 

 breeding habits dififer somewhat from those recorded of it on the arid plains of the Utah 

 Basin. Its nest differs from former descriptions in having more or less horse hair and 

 few rootlets for lining. One nest was fully six feet from the ground, and others some- 

 what lower, but none were found very near the ground, and all were placed securely in 

 crotches. The locality worked over this season had much less open and barren ground 

 than my field of last year, cactus and large thorny bushes covering pretty thickly all 

 spots free from chaparral or timber; yet I found the Black-throated Finch as abun- 

 dant as in the more barren country. Its eggs are perceptibly smaller than heretofore 

 recorded; their length varying from .70 to .66 and their breadth from .55 to .52.' 



The ground-color of the eggs is a pure white with a slight bluish tinge. 



I have observed the Black-throated Sparrow only a few times among opuntias 

 and mesquit bushes near San Antonio and in thick shrubbery near the West Yegua, Lee 

 Co., Tex. The bird is very quick in its motions, and when disturbed flies directly into the 

 dense thickets. Dr. Coues found it very^ abundant in the southern and western portions 

 of Arizona, and Lieutenant Couch met with it in northern Mexico. On one occasion, 

 having halted during a norther in Tamaulipas, he heard a gay little "black-throated 

 fellow, regardless of the bitter wind, from the top of a yellow mimosa, then in bloom, 

 give utterance to a strain of sprightly and sweet notes, that w^ould compare favorably 

 with those of many more famed songsters." 

 NAMES: Black-throated Sparrow, Black-throated Finch, "Wut-tu-ze-ze" (Indians). 



SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Emberiza bilineata Cassin (1850). Poospiza bilineata Sclat. (1857). AMPHI- 

 SPIZA BILINEATA CouES (1875). 



DESCRIPTION: "Sexes, alike. Above, uniform unspotted ashy-gray, tinged with light brown; purer and 

 more plumbeous anteriorly, and on the sides of head and neck. Under-parts, white, tinged w^ith 

 plumbeous on the sides and with yellowish-brown about the thighs. A sharply defined superciliary 

 and maxillary stripe of pure white, as also the lower eyelid, the former margined internally with 

 black. Loral region, black, passing insensibly into dark slate on the ears. Chin and throat between 

 the white maxillary stripes, black, ending on the upper part of the breast in a rounded outline. Tail, 

 black, and lateral feathers edged externally and tipped on inner web with white. Bill, blue." 

 "Length, 5.40 inches; wing, 2.75; tail, 2.90 inches." 



Bell's Sparrow, Ampbispiza belli Coues, is a common bird in southern California, 

 and thence to Cape St. Lucas, where all the extensive thickets are its favorite resort. 

 It also occurs in Arizona as far north as Fort Whipple, where it was rarely observed 

 by Dr. Elliott Coues. In the sage-brush on the Gila and Mohave Rivers it is abundant. 

 It lives upon small seeds and insects, indifferent as to water, or depending upon what 

 they obtain from dews and fogs. Dr. 'Heermann states that he found these birds in the 

 mountains bordering the Casumnes River, and afterwards on the broad tract of arid 

 land between Kerr River and the Tejon Pass, and again on the desert between that and 



