190S.] 



BIRDS. 



427 



On May 14, 1903, a male was secured by Merritt Gary on the road 

 jiear Sandy Creek, Alberta, 20 miles south of Athabaska Landing. 



Macoun, on the authority of Spreadborough, records that one was ♦ 

 >een on the shore of an island in Lesser Slave Lake on May 31, 1903.^ 



Pooecetes gramineus confinis Baird. AVestern Vesper Sparrow. 



The vesper sparrow, here represented by the western subspecies, 

 ranges over the semiprairie country of the upper Athabaska and 

 Peace Eiver regions north at least to Fort Smith. ^ In 1901 it was 

 common and was seen daily at Edmonton and between that point and 

 Athabaska Landing, April 29 to May 5. Several were observed on 

 the island at Grand Rapid, May 10. It was not again noted until we 

 reached Fort Smith, where one or two were seen June 21. A^^iile I 

 was collecting on the prairie-like tracts a few miles west of Fort 

 Smith, June 24, several were seen and heard and a male was col- 

 lected. The species was next observed Avhen we reached Athabaska 

 Landing on our return trip. Here we found it common August 30 

 and 31, and we observed it almost daily between that point and 

 Edmonton, August 31 to September 3. 



In 1903 we first obserA'ed this bird at Edmonton May 10, when 

 the species was rather common in some extensive fields near the 

 river. Along our route to Athabaska Landing, May 11 to 15, we 

 found it common. 



In 1904 I met with the vesj^er sparrow only along the road between 

 Athabaska Landing and Sandy Creek, Alberta, where it was common 

 September 2. 



Eggs of the vesper sparrow taken at Lesser Slave Lake by Strachan 

 Jones, probably in 1868, were received by the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, and presumably are still in the collection. A skin taken by 

 J. Alden Loring at Edmonton, Alberta, September 9, 1894, is in the 

 collection of the Biological Survey. 



Macoun states, on the authority of Spreadborough, that this bird 

 was common along the trail on all the dry grass land from Edmonton 

 to Jasper House in 1898; also common [in 1903] on all the small 

 prairies throughout the Peace River country between latitude 55° 

 and 57°.^ 



Passerculus sandwichensis alaudinus Bonap. Western Savanna 

 Sparrow. 



This is one of the most abundant sparrows in summer throughout 

 the region north at least to the limit of trees. In 1901 several were 



° Cat. Canadian Birds, Part III, p. 460, 1904. 

 MacFarlane's record of the breeding of the vesper sparrow in the Fort 

 Anderson region (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XIV, p. 441, 1891) was, as he suspects, 

 founded on a case of misidentiflcation, the species being Anthus ruhescens, 

 which see. 



Cat. Canadian Birds, Part III, p. 462, 1904. 



