THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 
1938 
A Famous Song Sparrow and His Eleven Wives 
By MARGARET MORSE NICE 
Male corn buntings in England have been found to have several 
mates at a time, even in one case aS many as seven, but this was not 
true with the song sparrows near Columbus, Ohio, where monogamy 
was the rule and only four cases of bigamy came to my notice. 
The most important among the 735 song sparrows I banded was 
4M, who lived in our garden for eight years. During this period he 
had eleven different mates. 
The birds were distinguished by means of numbered aluminum 
bands and colored celluloid bands, both supplied by the United States 
Biological Survey. Besides this, I knew by heart each one of 4M’s 
nine songs, and I followed him by ear even more than I did by eye. 
4M was a permanent resident, staying in our garden the year 
around. On the forty acre tract which I studied, about half the 
nesting males of this species were resident, while the other males and 
the majority of the females left for the South in October and returned 
in late February or March. 
4M’s first wife was unbanded; in 1928 I saw her and her husband 
protesting at a cowbird that was eating one of their eggs, but soon 
after that she disappeared and 4M was left a widower and devoted 
himself to singing. 
The next year I settled down to study 4M and Uno and their 
mates; I have told somewhat in detail of the adventures of these four 
birds in Bird-Lore (July, September and November, 1936). 4M and 
his mate Quarta made four attempts at nesting; two came to grief, 
but from the third attempt they raised four young and from the last 
attempt one. . 
Of 4M’s eleven mates only one was a resident, a bird that joined 
him in February of 1930 only to disappear shortly after. A few days 
later he obtained another mate that I called Chatvar. They made 
three unsuccessful attempts at nesting, after which Chatvar disap- 
peared. Before long a neighbor’s wife followed her cowbird step-child 
into 4M’s territory, and instead of returning to her husband, remained 
with 4M, built a nest in his rose-bush and raised four babies. This 
bird—Rosemary-—returned the next two years, but 4M was already 
mated before her arrival; she settled next door, the third year her 
mate being the grandson of one of her neighbors of 1930. 
4M’s mate in 1931—-Blueberry—joined him again in 1932—the 
only time this happened with him. The first year they raised a brood 
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