198 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XII 
I made several attempts to take her picture by approaching slowly and setting up 
the camera in front of me. I once got so far as to see her image on the ground 
glass, but she left immediately afterward as I was removing the slide from the 
pack-adapter. I then tried setting up the camera near the nest and leaving until she 
should return, but tho she returned soon, the presence of the camera made her 
nervous and she would leave long before I reacht it. I finally gave it up and ob- 
tained only a picture of the nest and eggs. 
About a hundred feet from this nest I flusht a Lincoln Sparrow ( Meluspiza 
lin coin i ) from its nest, situated at the base of a clump of willows and containing 
three eggs. At our next camp, about six miles south of Pipestone Basin, I found 
two more nests of this bird, one with four and one with five eggs. The nests are 
much like those of the Song Sparrow but a little smaller, and constructed almost 
entirely of grass with little or no hair in the lining. The way in which this bird 
flushes from her nest is very distinctive and quite unlike any other sparrow with 
which I am acquainted. She slips quietly from her nest and runs off thru the 
grass without a note or a flut- 
ter of any sort, her movements 
more like those of a mouse 
than a bird. In fact two of 
the three birds I flusht I sup- 
posed at first were mice, and 
had I not lookt at them a 
second time would have gone 
away without seeing their 
nests. 
Up to the time the young 
birds left the nest I never 
heard an alarm note of any 
sort from the Lincoln Spar- 
rows, but after that time, which 
took place about June 25, one 
could not enter the willow 
thickets without being scolded 
from one end to the other by 
these birds. We had a litter of 
young coyotes in camp, and 
Eig. 66. NEST AND EGGS OK LINCOLN SPARROW 
one Sunday they broke loose from their pen and led us quite a chase into a near-by 
willow swamp, before they were finally captured. As soon as they entered the 
swamp the Lincoln Sparrows, evidently recognizing a natural enemy, started 
scolding in a manner that I have seldom heard equalled in any bird. While 
helping to corner one of the coyotes, I notist a young Lincoln Sparrow running 
ahed of me thru the grass and soon captured it. In general appearance and in the 
manner in which it ran thru the grass this bird resembled, until actually caught, a 
newly hatcht game-bird rather than a young sparrow. It was unable to fly, but 
was very active at running and hiding in the tall grass. I took it to camp and 
posed it on the end of a tent peg for its picture, after which I releast it again in 
the swamp. 
About fifty feet away from the nest of the Pileolated Warbler, and close to the 
edge of the willow thicket, a pair of Pink-sided Juncos ( Jmico mearnsi ) appeared, 
scolded me, flew about my hed and finally followed me out of the swamp where I 
had searcht in vain for nest or young. Later I found another spot where a pair of 
