Nov:, 1921". FALL MIGRATIONS OF FOX SPARROWS 179 
ity seemed to be a good place in which to intercept migration. The weather 
was rather warm at this time and, toward noon, as the sun’s rays became more 
intense, the sparrows kept so close to cover that our work had to be post- 
poned until early the next morning. 
I had figured on finding some of the Yolla Bolly Fox Sparrows in this 
place, working down from the higher altitudes of the Sanhedrin range to the 
north, and was pleased to find the expectation correct. In fact, 60 percent of 
our take here was of this species, showing that it leaves its breeding ground 
at about the same time as the earliest northern migrants commence to arrive 
or, as one might say, drift in. 
We passed but two days at Glenbrook and then went back to our former 
collecting ground at Castle Hot Springs, at an elevation of 2800 feet on the 
Mt. St. Helena Range, Lake County, just south of Cobb Mountain. Here there 
is some very good brush country for fox sparrows, at about 3000 feet and up- 
ward. 
The morning of September 26 was a very warm one. My brother and I 
went in one direction and Little in another. We went through some forest 
along an old mining trail into some good-looking brush, securing a few speci- 
mens, but soon the heat became so intense that we returned to a woody can- 
yon that ran up through the brush, and camped down near some small pools 
of water. It was not long before a fox sparrow appeared, and another and 
another! Soon we discovered that there was a regular stream of them coming 
to the water holes. We could see only for a few yards on any side and could 
not well make out whether the birds were approaching from any special direc- 
tion, but most of them appeared to be coming up the narrow bed of the dry 
arroyo toward the tiny spring that still contained water, and to a few smali 
holes in the rocky bottom that had a httle water left over from an unusual 
summer rain. The season had been a dry one and water was scarce in the vi- 
einity. 
_ We obtained a number of specimens, of several different subspecies, never 
knowing what the next one would prove to be, and later found that Little had 
been equally successful on the brushy hillside where he had been working, 
which was along the road leading to the springs. A large number of fox spar- 
rows were moving in the brush there, and many flew across the road. Little’s 
notes relate that ‘‘the fox sparrows were very abundant and, as they flew 
about making a thrush-like noise, or better yet, the junco note, I thought the 
country must be overrun with thrushes or juncos.’’ None of us had ever 
before in our lives seen such a number of these birds at any one time. 
This movement recalled to my mind a late September day, many years 
ago, when I was staying with Mr. William Kent, at Kentfield, Marin County, 
California, when we were deer hunting on a spur of Mt. Tamalpais. At one 
time during that morning, as I was sitting on a rock overlooking a_ steep, 
brushy canyon, | noticed a most curious rustling on all sides below me, which 
I could not at first account for. After watching for a while, I caught sight of 
a fox sparrow scratching under a thick bush near by, and it gradually dawned 
on me that this subdued, but vast—if such an expression be allowed in this 
case—rustling was being produced by a great number of individuals of this 
bird group scratching for the seeds among the dead leaves of manzanita and 
ceanothus bushes. As but few of the birds came to the surface of this sea of 
