Dr. Coues found this Sparrow very abundant in the southern and western portions of Arizona, though rare at Fort Whipple, where the locality was unsuited to it, as it seemed to prefer open plains, grassy or covered with sagebrush.
Mr. J. H. Clarke, who met with these birds in Tamaulipas, Texas, and New Mexico, speaks of them as abundant and widely distributed. He found them on the lower Rio Grande, but more abundantly in the interior, seeming to prefer the stunted and sparse vegetation of the sand-hills and dry plains to the cottonwood groves and willow thickets of the river valleys, where they were never seen. They would be very inconspicuous did not the male occasionally perch himself on some topmost branch and pour forth a continuous strain of music. In the more barren regions they were the almost exclusive representatives of the feathered tribes.
Dr. Heermann first remarked this Finch near Tucson, in Arizona, where he found it associated with other Sparrows in large flocks. They were flying from bush to bush, alighting on the ground to pick up grass-seeds and insects. They were quite numerous, and he traced them as far into Texas as the Dead Man’s Hole, between El Paso and San Antonio.
Dr. Cooper found a few of these birds on the treeless and waterless mountains that border the Colorado Valley, in pairs or in small companies, hopping along the ground, under the scanty shrubbery. In crossing the Providence Range, in May, Dr. Cooper found their nest, containing white eggs.
Both species of Poospiza, the belli and the bilineata, according to Mr. Ridgway, are entirely peculiar in their manners, habits, and notes. Both, he states, are birds characteristic of the arid artemisia plains of the Great Basin, and, with the Eremophila cornuta, are often the only birds met with on those desert wastes. The two species, he adds, are quite unlike in their habits and manners. They each have about the same extent of habitat, and even often frequent the same locality. While the P. bilineata is partial to dry sandy situations, inhabiting generally the arid mesa extending from the river valleys back to the mountains, the P. belli is almost confined to the more thrifty growth of the artemisia, as found in the damper valley portions. The P. belli is a resident species, and even through the severest winters is found in abundance. The P. bilineata is exclusively a summer bird, one of the latest to come from the South, and much the more shy of the two; its manners also are quite different.
Both birds have one common characteristic, which renders them worthy of especial remark. This is the peculiar delivery and accent, and the strange sad tone of their spring song, which, though unassuming and simple, is indeed strange in the effect it produces. This song, so plaintive and mournful, harmonizes with the dull monotony of the desert landscape.
Mr. Ridgway states that the P. bilineata is not so abundant as the other species, and is more retiring in its habits. It principally frequents the desert tracts and sandy wastes, on which are found only the most stunted forms of sage-brush. Its song, though quite simple, is exceedingly fine, its modulation being somewhat like wut´-wut´-ze-e-e-e-e-e, the first two syllables being uttered in a rich metallic tone, while the final trill is in a lower key, and of the most liquid and tremulous character imaginable. This simple chant is repeated every few seconds, the singer being perched upon a bush. He adds that this bird arrives on the Truckee Reservation about the 13th of May. The nest is built in sage-bushes, and the eggs are found from the 7th to the 21st of June. The nests are usually about one foot from the ground, or thereabouts.
The eggs vary in size from .70 by .55 of an inch to .75 by .60. They are of a rounded-oval shape, and of a pure white with a slight tinge of blue, somewhat resembling the eggs of the Bachman Finch.
Poospiza belli, Sclater
BELL’S SPARROW
Emberiza belli, Cassin, Pr. A. N. Sc. Phila. V, Oct. 1850, 104, pl. iv (San Diego, Cal.). Poospiza belli, Sclater, Pr. Zoöl. Soc. 1857, 7.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 470.—Heerm. X, s. p. 46. Zonotrichia belli, Elliot, Illust. Birds N. Am. I, pl. xiv.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 204.
Sp. Char. Upper parts generally, with sides of head and neck, uniform bluish-ash, tinged with yellowish-gray on the crown and back, and with a few very obsolete dusky streaks on the interscapular region. Beneath pure white, tinged with yellowish-brown on the sides and under the tail. Eyelids, short streak from the bill to above the eye, and small median spot at the base of culmen, white. A stripe on the sides of the throat and spot on the upper part of the breast, with a few streaks on the sides, with the loral space and region round the eyes, plumbeous-black. Tail-feathers black; the outer edged with white. Wing-feathers all broadly edged with brownish-yellow; the elbow-joint tinged with yellowish-green. Bill and feet blue. Length, 5.70; wing, 2.80; tail, 2.90. (Largest specimen, 6,338 ♂, Cosumnes River).
Hab. Southern California.
The colors are softer and more blended in the autumn; the young are obsoletely streaked on the breast.
Habits. Bell’s Finch has apparently a more restricted distribution than the Black-throated species, and is resident wherever found. It has been met with at Posa Creek, Cal., by Dr. Heermann, at Fort Thorn by Dr. T. C. Henry, and along the Colorado River by Drs. Kennerly and Möllhausen. It has likewise been found in Southern California, as far north as Sacramento Valley, and in the valley of the Gila.
Dr. Cooper states that all the extensive thickets throughout the southern half of California are the favorite resorts of this bird. There they apparently live upon small seeds and insects, indifferent as to water, or depending upon what they obtain from dews or fogs. They reside all the year in the same localities, and were also numerous on the island of San Nicolas, eighty miles from the mainland. In spring the males utter, as Dr. Cooper says, a low monotonous ditty, from the top of some favorite shrub, answering each other from long distances. Their nest he found about three feet from the ground, composed of grasses and slender weeds, lined with hair and other substances. The eggs, four in number, he describes as pale greenish, thickly sprinkled over with reddish-brown dots. At San Diego he found the young hatched out by May 18, but thinks they are sometimes earlier. It is also a common bird in the chaparral of Santa Clara Valley, and also, according to Dr. Heermann, along the Cosumnes River.
In Arizona, according to Dr. Coues, it is rather uncommon about Fort Whipple, owing to the unsuitable nature of the locality, but is abundant among the sage-brush of the Gila Valley, where it keeps much on the ground, and where its movements are very much like those of a Pipilo.
Drs. Kennerly and Möllhausen met with these Sparrows on the Little Colorado River, in California, December 15. They were found during that month along the banks of the river wherever the weeds and bushes were thick. It was never observed very far from the water, and its food, at that season, seemed to consist of the seeds of various kinds of weeds. Its motions were quick, and, when started up, its flight was short, rapid, and near the earth.
Dr. Heermann states that in the fall of 1851 he found this species in the mountains bordering the Cosumnes River, and afterwards on the broad tract of arid land between Kerr River and the Tejon Pass, and again on the desert between that and the Mohave River. He often found them wandering to a great distance from water. With only a few exceptions, these were the only birds inhabiting the desolate plains, where the artemisia is the almost exclusive vegetation. When undisturbed, it chants merrily from some bush-top, but, at the approach of danger, drops at once to the ground and disappears in the shrubbery or weeds. Its nest he found built in a bush, composed of twigs and grasses, and lined with hair. The eggs, four in number, he describes as of a light greenish-blue, marked with reddish-purple spots, differing in intensity of shade.
Poospiza belli, var. nevadensis, Ridgway
ARTEMISIA SPARROW
Poospiza belli, var. nevadensis, Ridgway, Report on Birds of 40th Parallel.
Sp. Char. Resembling P. belli, but purer ashy above, with the dorsal streaks very distinct, instead of almost obsolete. Wing, 3.20 (instead of 2.50); tail, 3.20 (instead of 2.50); bill (from forehead), .35; tarsus, .76. (Type, No. 53,516 ♂, Western Humboldt Mountains, Nev., United States Geol. Expl. 40th Par.)
Young. Streaked above, the crown obsoletely, the back distinctly. Whole breast and sides with numerous short dusky streaks upon a white ground. Markings about the head indistinct, wing-bands more distinct than in the adult.
Hab. Middle Province of United States, north to beyond 40° (resident).
Poospiza belli var. belli
11211
The difference in size between the race of the Great Basin and that of the southern Pacific Province, of this species, is quite remarkable, being much greater than in any other instance within our knowledge. This may, perhaps, be explained by the fact that the former is not migratory, but resident even in the most northern part of its range; while the California one is also resident, and an inhabitant of only the southern portion of the coast region, not reaching nearly so far north as the race of the interior.
The coloration of the two races is quite identical, though in all specimens of var. belli the dorsal streaks are obsolete, sometimes even apparently wanting, while in the var. nevadensis they are always conspicuous. The former appears to be more brownish above than the latter.
Habits. These birds, Mr. Ridgway states, have a very general distribution, extending as far west as the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada. At Carson City, February 27, he heard for the first time their sweet sad chant. A week later he found the sage-brush full of these birds, the males being in full song and answering one another from all directions. In walking through the sage-brush these Sparrows were seen on every side, some running upon the ground with their tails elevated, uttering a chipping twitter, as they sought to conceal themselves behind the shrubs. Some were seen to alight upon the tops of dead stalks, where they sit with their tails expanded almost precisely after the manner of the Kingbird. The song of this bird is feeble, but is unsurpassed for sweetness and sadness of tone. While its effect is very like the song of a Meadow Lark singing afar off, there is, besides its peculiar sadness, something quite unique in its modulation and delivery. It is a chant, in style somewhat like the spring warbling of the Shore Lark.
On the 24th of March, at Carson City, he found these Sparrows very abundant and everywhere the predominating species, as it was also the most unsuspicious and familiar. It was even difficult to keep them from under the feet. A pair would often run before him for a distance of several rods with their unexpanded tails elevated, and when too nearly approached would only dodge in among the bushes instead of flying off.
On the 9th of April, walking among the sage-brush near Carson City, Mr. Ridgway found several nests of this Sparrow, the female parent in each instance betraying the position of her nest by running out, as he approached, from the bush beneath which it was concealed. With elevated tail, running rapidly and silently away, they disappeared among the shrubbery. In such cases a careful examination of the spot was sure to result in finding an artfully concealed nest, either embedded in the ground or a few inches above it in the lower branches of the bush. He did not find this species east of the northern end of Great Salt Lake, nor was it seen in the neighborhood of Salt Lake City, where the other species was so abundant.
The eggs of this species differ very essentially from those of the P. bilineata. They are oblong in shape, have a light greenish ground, marked all over the egg with very fine dots of a reddish-brown, and around the larger end with a ring of confluent blotches of dark purple and lines of a darker brown, almost black. They measure .80 by .60 of an inch. They resemble very closely a not uncommon variety of the eggs of the Spizella pusilla.