The Nnttall Sparrow 



WHEN you enter a bit of shrub- 

 bery at the edge of town in April or 

 May, your intrusion is almost sure 

 to be questioned by a military gen- 

 tleman in a gray cloak with black- 

 and-white trimmings. Your business 

 may be personal, not public, but 

 somehow you feel as if the authority 

 of the law had been invoked, and 

 that you would better be careful how 

 you conduct yourself in the presence 

 of this military person. Usually re- 

 tiring, the Nuttall Sparrow courts 

 exposure where the welfare of his 

 family is in question, and a metallic 

 scolding note, zink, or dzink, is made 

 to do incessant service on such occa- 

 sions. A thoroughly aroused pair, 

 worms in beak, and crests uplifted, 

 may voice their suspicions for half an 

 hour from fir-tip and brush-pile, 

 without once disclosing the where- 

 abouts of their young. 



Nuttall's Sparrow is the familiar 

 spirit of brush-lots, fence tangles, 

 berry patches, and half-open situa- 

 tions in general. He is among the 

 last to quit the confines of the city 



before the advancing ranks of apartment houses and sky-scrapers, and he 

 maintains stoutly any vantage ground of vacant lot, disordered hedge- 

 row, or neglected swamplet left to him. Even Golden Gate Park boasts 

 its breeding population of Nuttall Sparrows; and I have known them to 

 invade Union Square in the heyday of the spring migration. With the 

 local Song Sparrow he shares the honor of being the commonest sparrow in 

 the northwestern coastal strip of California; and in some places, no doubt 

 because of his less slavish attachment to water, nuttalli is more abundant 

 than Melospiza. 



As a songster this sparrow is not a conspicuous success, although he 

 works at his trade with commendable diligence. He chooses a prominent 

 station, such as the topmost sprig of a redwood sapling, and holds forth at 

 regular intervals in a prosy, iterative ditty, from which the slight musical 

 quality vanishes with distance. Hee ho, chee wee, chee wee chee weee and 



Taken in Seattle 



Photo by the Author 



NUTTALL SPARROW, FEMALE 



332 



