The Western Chipping Sparrow 



that at a given season he would make free with our lawns, or appear in the 

 back yard to claim a share of the crumbs. Later the name socialis came 

 into vogue, and this, too, expressed the bird's friendliness toward folks, 

 rather than any gregarious tendency. Then the relentless law of priority 

 inflicted the name of passerina upon us, and we have no way to record our 

 appreciation of the bird's homely trustfulness. 



The naming of birds is a highly artificial process at best, and as 

 often misleading as instructive. Spizella, little sparrow, is excellent; 

 passerina, sparrowlike, is a silly reduplication; while 

 arizonce, of the desert, is rather inept as applied to 

 the Western Chipping Sparrow in California, since 

 the bird appears sparingly in our deserts only in 

 the winter season. In the northern interior, say 

 in eastern Washington, the bird is quite 

 characteristic of the sage-brush deserts, or 

 desert fringes; but in California the Chip- 

 ping Sparrow has three principal breeding 

 associations: culture, including parks, 

 orchards and lawns; river fringes, espe- 

 cially of the upper levels; and evergreen 

 timber. The last division requires 

 further distinction, for this Sparrow 

 is not a bird of the forest depths, but 

 only of the parks and openings, — the 

 forest borders, whether these be of 

 second-growth redwood in the log- 

 ged-off areas of Humboldt County, a 

 yellow pine grove in the central 

 Sierras, or the upper timbered levels 

 lying along both sides of the Sierra 

 crests. The Chipping Sparrow, 

 therefore, is a bird of extreme "toler- 

 ance," for at the same time it is 

 enduring the high temperatures (oc- 

 casionally up to no degrees) of the 

 lower Sonoran orchards in Los iVnge- 

 les County, the chilly sea fogs of 

 humid Transition in Del Norte 

 County, and the nightly frosts of the 

 11,000 foot level on Mount Whitney. 

 Yet for all this, there is no evidence 

 of incipient change in plumage, nor 



Taken in San Diego Counly Photo by Donald R. Dickey 



WESTERN CHIPPING SPARROW. NEST AND YOUNG 



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