The Song Sparrows 



DR. GRINNELL started out to keep a record of the California occur- 

 rences of the White-throated Sparrow, but the effort has become em- 

 barrassed with success; and we no longer know whether this year's first 

 appearance will be the steenty-steenth or the umpty-umpth. It may be a 

 ruddier back or a flash of yellow on the lores, or the white throat itself, 

 clearly outlined against the surrounding dingy gray, which will first 

 attract your notice. But sometimes, if you will search diligently enough 

 among the assembled millions of the winter Zonotrichias, you will see a 

 White-throat. Do not be too easily satisfied about that white throat 

 either. Remember that the white must be sharply defined, not shading 

 off imperceptibly, as in adult leucophrys or coronata. 



My own luck came so easily that I blush to record it, an adult bird 

 feeding, on the 8th of December, 1915, just outside my north study win- 

 dow, at a distance of eight feet. They were rather common at Santa 

 Barbara that winter, but try as I might, I could not pull off a singing 

 match between albicollis and coronata; and I do not know to this day 

 which of them shrills with most haunting sweetness. 



In the East, where White-throat lets himself out, he is quite a famous 

 singer. "In springtime the song proper is perfected, as we suppose, before 

 the birds leave for the higher latitudes. It consists normally of six drawl- 

 ing, mournful, whistled notes, of which the last three or four have a 

 slightly tremulous quality. The initiatory note is either much lower or a 

 little higher than the others, which are given on one key or else descend 

 by fractional tones. The whole may be represented as, Oh dear, dear, 

 de-e-ear, de-e-ear, de-ear, or Hoo, he-ew, he-ew, he-e-e-ew, he-e-ew, he-e-ew. 

 Most western writers, when consulted upon this point, dutifully repeat the 

 tradition, said to have originated in New England, that the bird says 

 'Peabody, peabody, peabody,' and hence is properly called the Peabody 

 Bird. One cannot predict what may happen further north or east, but I 

 lift the voice of one crying in the wilderness that the bird does not utter 

 anything remotely resembling the word Peabody while in Ohio." (Birds 

 of Ohio.) 



No. 62 



Song Sparrow 



EUPHONIAS and Pyrrhuloxias and Volatinias are very beautiful, no 

 doubt, but there is a little brown -streaked bird of modest mien whose 

 image is conjured up by the word "home," and whose homely, honest song 



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