The Song Sparrows 



but the next line contains reference to Tacpr, who, as presidential incum- 

 bent had evidently been received into full communion by the patriotic 

 Greeks. This exhibit of Vespa-Graeca-Melospizine architecture, to- 

 gether with the five eggs which it contained, now reposes in the collection 

 of the Museum of Comparative Oology, and it constitutes one of her 

 proudest trophies. 



No. 62r Salton Sink Song Sparrow 



A. O. U. No. 581a, part. Melospiza melodia saltonis Grinnell. 



Description. — A bleached race, retaining only the barest outlines of the familiar 

 Song Sparrow pattern: the black element nearly suppressed, appearing only on exposed 

 portions of tertials; general tone of upperparts smoke-gray; the rufous element both 

 above and below lighter and brighter brown (nearest sayal brown); the whites of 

 underparts clearer and more extended. Juvenal birds share the bleached appearance 

 of their parents, and are very slightly streaked, often only upon chest and back. Meas- 

 urements of type, an adult male (after Grinnell): wing 58.8 (2.315); tail 67.2 (2.646); 

 culmen 10.5 (.41); tarsus 20.7 (.815). 



Range of M. m. saltonis. — Resident in Lower Sonoran zone from southern 

 Nevada and southwestern Utah south to southeastern Arizona, southeastern Cali- 

 fornia, northeastern Lower California, and Sonora. 



Distribution in California. — Resident in the Colorado Valley tributary to 

 Salton Sink, in the Imperial Valley, and along the valley of the Colorado; casual on 

 the Mohave Desert (Oro Grande, Feb. 17, 18, 1918, by Wright M. Pierce). 



Authorities. — Coues {Melospiza fallax), Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1866, 

 p. 88 (Colo. Valley; s. Calif.); Cooper, Orn. Calif., 1870, p. 215 (Colo. Valley) ; Grinnell, 

 Univ. Calif. Pub. Zool., vol. v., 1909, p. 268 (Mecca; orig. desc); ibid., vol. xii., 1914, 

 p. 174 (Colo. R.; habits, crit.). 



NATLIRE has played another of her practical jokes, and this time 

 the victim is one of our beloved Song Sparrows. Snaring him with the 

 lure of one of those cattail patches, which somehow manage to survive both 

 in the Salton Sink and along the overflow lagoons of the Colorado River, 

 she has soaked our friend with her eternal sunshine until he is bleached 

 out almost beyond recognition. The blacks of a normal Song Sparrow's 

 plumage have been reduced almost to the vanishing point, the browns 

 are faded to palest tawny, and the grays are browned and blended. 

 One is irresistibly moved to call him "Sandy"; and the discovery that 

 this desert rat can chirp and sing and covet and wive with the lustiest 

 provokes one, somehow, to disrespectful mirth. 



Dr. Grinnell notes 1 that this sparrow is characteristic of the arrow- 

 weed association in the Colorado River Valley, and that it is almost 

 as fond of the young willows. The annual floods of this river, which 

 occur in May and early June, defer the nesting of the sparrow accordingly; 



1 "An Account of the Mammals and Bird? of the Lower Colorado Valley." U. of C. Pub. in Zool., 1914, p. 17. 

 358 



