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Sept., 1906 Nesting Sites of the Desert Sparrow

BY FLORENCE MERRIAM BAILEY

HE naturalist working in the arid plains of the southwest finds his days so enlivened by the bright cheery song of Amphispiza b. deserticola that he becomes greatly attached to the companionable little songster and comes to associate him only with sunshine and happy good cheer. But for all his merry tunes poor Amphispiza has anxieties and tragedies all his own. One June morning in New Mexico as I was going thru a grove of small round junipers, with spirits lifted by the bright song from the top of one of the trees, my steps were arrested and I gazed with dismay upon a beautiful little nest rudely torn from its place in the juniper, and the ground below strewn with feathers of the brooding mother bird. The horrid tragedy was probably no older than the night for the wind had not had time to blow away the feathers, and tracks tho blurred by the night's rain were fresh enough to fix the blame upon the marauder—a coyote or lynx. Was the songster to whom I had been listening, from the neighboring juniper top still hopefully calling for his poor dead mate? Or—with the philosophy that comes so quickly to the short-lived little beings whose emotions are compressed into hours—was he calling for another mate to help make a home in the desert?

A few days afterward we got hint of an arrested Amphispiza tragedy. Close to camp we discovered a nest in a low tree cactus and on examination found that one side was torn out and that there was only one nestling left. The brooding

From Biological Collection (by Permission)

Published by permission of C. Hart Merriam, Chief of Biological SurveSurvey [sic]