Freitas and Francisco • REPRODUCTION OF THE YELLOWISH PIPIT 
125 
and Old World Oscines), and ecological aspects, such 
as habitat and nest types, were not considered. The 
study performed by Martin (2002) compared nine 
pairs of passerines (3 of them intrageneric) from 
Arizona and subtropical Argentinean Yunga forests, 
and corroborated the premises of longer incubation 
and nestling periods in Southern Hemisphere species. 
We did not find support for a longer incubation 
period for Yellowish Pipit in relation to Northern 
Hemisphere congeners, being similar to Meadow and 
Sprague's pipits. The incubation period for popula¬ 
tions of American Pipit from Wyoming alpine tundra, 
seem to be longer than that of Yellowish Pipit Our 
findings corroborated the tendency for longer nestling 
periods in Yellowish Pipits (although quite close to 
that of American Pipits). Our comparisons must be 
viewed with caution because incubation and nestling 
periods presented in many of the studies are based on 
small sample sizes, and statistical tests were 
performed only between Yellowish and England 
Meadow pipits. 
The proposition of the major patterns of bird 
breeding life history adaptations to varying 
latitudes can he traced to the 1940s (Moreau 
1944. Lack 1947, Skutch 1949), but the premise 
of slower developmental rates and lower annual 
fecundity in Southern Hemisphere passerines still 
relics on a limited number of comparisons that 
controlled for phylogeny and ecology (Martin 
et ul. 2000, Martin 2002). Many other passerine- 
genera are distributed in both Northern and 
Southern hemispheres, and they should he the 
locus in future studies. Providing basic life history 
data for the poorly studied tropical representa- 
, ' ves . and inclusion of raw data in papers (clutch 
sizes, and incubation and nestling periods) will 
permit more accurate comparisons. 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
We are grateful to Secretaria do Meio Ambiente de 
Sorocaba for authorizing field work in the study area. 
We especially thank S. L. Jones. S. K. Davis, M. N. 
Schlindwein, A. J. Piratelli, and an anonymous referee for 
important comments on the previous versions of this 
manuscript. M. S. Freitas was supported by a fellowship 
front PlBIC/CNPq. 
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