430 



NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA. 



Chondestes grammacus strigatus SAvains. Western Lark Sparrow. 



A lark sparrow referred to this race was seen in a dooryard at 

 Fort McMurray, August 12, 1904. Before I could secure the bird 

 it flew into an adjoining field, but careful search failed to disclose it. 



Zonotrichia querula (Nutt.). Harris Sparrow. 



This handsome species, sometimes called the hooded sparrow, 

 passes northward in spring through the eastern part of the region 

 in considerable numbers, to return, accompanied by its young, in 

 the autumn. Its breeding ground was long a matter of conjecture. 

 On our trip to Hudson Bay in 1900, we found it abundant late in 

 July in the thickets of stunted spruce at Fort Churchill, accompa- 

 nied by barely fledged young and manifestly on its breeding ground ; 

 during the present investigation we found old and young common 

 along the southern shore of Great Bear Lake, in a habitat precisely 

 similar to its chosen nesting ground on Hudson Bay. All indica- 

 tions therefore point to the conclusion that its principal breeding 

 grounds are in the strip of stunted timber extending for 800 miles 

 between Hudson Ba}^ and Great Bear Lake, along the northern 

 border of the transcontinental forest. In the region thus indicated, 

 which has been visited in summer by so few naturalists that the 

 species may easily have been overlooked, there is ample room for 

 the hordes that pass northward each spring through the northern 

 portion of the Mississippi Valley and the adjoining parts of Canada.*^ 



In 1901 we noted the hooded sparrow but once — near Fort Chipe- 

 wyan on the morning of May 23, when several were observed among 

 a large company of migrating sparrows. 



During my trip northward from Fort Rae, in 1908, I first observed 

 this species a few miles south of MacTavish Bay, August 23, noting 

 several and securing one. I next noted it on the southern shore of 

 Great Bear Lake just west of MacTavish Bay, on August 27. Both 

 old and young, associated in small loose flocks, Avere common among 

 the stunted spruces of this exposed shore, Avhich afforded a habitat 

 almost precisely similar to that frequented by the species on Hudson 

 Bay during the breeding season. Numbers Avere observed daih^ in 

 this vicinity up to September 7, the species being especially common 

 at our camp east of Leith Point, AAdiere I took nearly a dozen speci- 

 mens between August 27 and September 7. After several cold nights 

 early in September the species became less common, but AA:as seen 

 in small numbers near Mc Vicar Bay, September 10; 40 miles west 

 of there, September 13 ; and near Manito Islands, September 14. It 

 was next noted at Fort Franklin, September 26, when a single bird, 



" Since the above was written a nest of this species (the first well-authenti- 

 cated one yet reported) has been found by- E. T. Seton at the tree limit on 

 Artillery Lake, (Auk, XXY, p. 72, 1908.) 



