May, 1906 | 
PAPERS ON. PHILIPPINE BIRDS II 
73 
possess the patience of an American Indian combined with the small boy’s delight 
in a gun and take keen pleasure in securing new or rare birds. 
Next to the leech the greatest pest is the average white man who wants to 
know how you kill ’em and what you do with ’em, or who insists that you are col- 
lecting for the Smithsonian “Institute”! The “little brown brothers” are quite as 
inquisitive but one need not understand Spanish and can forgive them as they 
know no better. 
When once you become resigned or callous to the delays in transportation, to 
the slowness inherent in natives of all tropical countries, to the monotony of rice 
at every meal, to the lack of mail for weeks at a time, and forget the inquisitive 
white, you really enjoy collecting in the Philippines. To expect tomorrow what 
should come today and to be unruffled when the morrow does not bring it is to live 
happily in these islands. Mexico has been called ‘‘the land of manatia”; the Phil- 
ippines are the islands of paciencia. 
Manila , P. I. 
The Nuttall Sparrow Around San Francisco 
BY LOUIS BOI.ANDER 
T HE Nuttall sparrow ( Zonotrichia leucophrys nuttalli ) is very plentiful around 
San Francisco at all times. Along canyons that have just enough brush for 
a cover, near the sea shore, and along wooded highways you can nearly 
always find this wide-awake bird. I knew of a place in the suburbs of San Fran- 
cisco where they used to come and roost in a vine against the house every night. 
This was in January and February. There is a valley near the city called French- 
man’s Valley. Here you can see this sparrow at any time; for they nest and raise 
their young here, finding their food in the nearby vegetable gardens. They do 
not fly far when followed by a person, except when he has a gun; then they dis- 
appear in all directions. They build their nests in the brush which here does not 
grow higher than two feet. Once in a while I find a nest built on the ground. 
The nests are not bulky when they are built thus. The only site where I have 
noted their nests as being bulky is where they build in trees, especially the young 
pines. 
The first two nests of this species I ever found were built in pine trees about 
eight feet above the ground. And here the nests were very bulky. The inside 
lining was of light-colored soft grasses; then around this were heavier grasses of 
darker color; and then came a thick matting of pine needles. You could not tell 
the nest apart from the other bunches of needles that had caught in the crotches of 
the tree. The bird flew off each time as I approached the nest, and this was the 
only means of finding the nest. Both male and female kept up a constant chirping 
while I was near. Both nests contained three eggs. These nests were found in a 
small valley leading up from the pumping station on Lake Merced. When the 
nests are built in cypress trees they are generally small but not as small as those 
built in bushes. 
The birds commence to breed about the last of March. I found one set on 
April 8, 1905. The eggs were deserted because of a heavy rain just a few days 
before, or possibly from some other cause. Within fifty feet was another nest with 
four half-grown young birds in it, all with their mouths open for food. The 
