FINCHES, SPARROWS 



(602) Sporophila morelleti 

 sharpei Lawrence 



(Gr., seed loviny). 



SHARPE'S SEEDEATER. Bill 

 short, stout and convex. Ad. c^ — 

 Plumage as shown by the lower bird; 

 top and sides of head, back and a 

 narrow band across the breast black; 

 throat, sides of neck, under parts and 

 rump white; bases of primaries and 

 tips or edges of most wing feathers 

 white; flanks brownish. Ad. 9 — 

 Upper parts olive-brown; two buffy 

 wing bars; below pale buffy-brown. 

 L., 4.00; W., 2.05; T., 1.90; Tar., 60; 

 B., .35. Nest — Of fine grasses; in 

 bushes or small trees; eggs bluish- 

 green, spotted rather evenly over the 

 whole surface with reddish-brown, 

 .65 X .48. 



Range — Lower Rio Grande Val- 

 ley in southern Tex., southward. 



made of grasses, are normally placed in bushes or briers the 

 same as those of Indigoes, but they have also been found in 

 trees, ten feet or more above ground. The eggs are white, 

 spotted with reddish-brown, thus differing greatly from 

 those of other members of this genus, whose eggs are un- 

 marked bluish-white. 



SHARPE'S SEEDEATER is a curious little Mexican 

 finch that is occasionally taken in the lower Rio Grande 

 Valley and in southern Texas. They frequent thickets and 

 brier patches and are said not to be unusually timid. Their 

 nests, quite firmly constructed of wiry grasses, are placed 

 among branches within a few feet of the ground, partially 

 supported by the rim and also by the bottom. It appears to 

 require several years for these birds to attain their perfect 

 plumage and specimens with the breast band are rarely 

 seen. 



One of the commonest and most characteristic species of 

 birds found in dry weedy fields of the Ohio and Mississippi 



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