The Large-billed Sparrows 



August is the proper seaside month, and Large-billed Sparrows are 

 common all along our southern beaches at this season. Some few remain 

 through the season, domiciled in the drift-wood, which is their favorite 

 but scanty hiding place; but most of the birds settle upon our docks or 

 piers for their winter residence. Here they subsist upon the crumbs 

 left from fishermen's lunches, or upon the oats scattered by wasteful 

 work-horses. The undergirding of the wharf affords them welcome 

 shelter, to which they instantly repair in time of danger. 



Contact with civilization has not yet roughened their manners, 

 as it has in the case of the blatant English Sparrows; for they are ever 

 dainty and demure. It is well worth while in an idle noon to entice 

 these birds by proffer of crumbs, to see them race over the planking with 



many a prudent halt, and 

 finally accept your offering 

 with sippling beaks (pre- 

 cisely as though they were 

 drinking instead of eating) 

 and upturned glances of 

 gratitude. 



At such times also we 

 have heard the Passercu- 

 line song, although, coming 

 as it did in midwinter, 

 probably not in its fullest 

 volume. The song, gener- 

 ically similar to that of 

 P. s. alaudinus, is squeakier, 

 if possible, as well as 

 longer, and it ends in a 

 pookish trill, both finer and 

 lighter: Tsut tsut tsu wzzz 

 tsut tsu wizzy weee. Having 

 little enough of musical 

 quality, its delivery is at- 

 tended with visible effort, 

 as though it had to be squeezed out to the last atom. 



Those who sigh at the passing of the mysteries, have at least this 

 small comfort, that the nesting range of the Large-billed Sparrow is not 

 yet (Sept., 1915) precisely determined, and that its nest and eggs are 

 still unknown. By dint of much public inquiry in 1905 it developed 

 that Mr. A. W. Anthony had taken a female in breeding condition in 

 April at Rancho San Ramon, 25 miles north of San Quentin Bay, Lower 



261 



Taken in Santa Barbara Photo by the Author 



THE WHARFINGER 



