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Figure 16.—Breeding and wintering ranges and migration of Harris's sparrow, an example of a narrow migration route through the interior of the country. The heavy broken lines enclose the region traversed by the majority of these finches; the light broken line encloses the country where they occur with more or less regularity; while the spots indicate records of accidental or sporadic occurrence.
Harris's sparrow (Zonotrichia querula) supplies an interesting example of a narrow migration route in the interior of the country ([fig. 16]). This fine, large finch is known to breed only in the region from Fort Churchill, on the west shore of Hudson Bay, northwest to the shores of Great Bear Lake. Very few actual breeding records of the species are available, but these are sufficient to indicate that the breeding range is in the strip of country characterized by more or less stunted timber just south of the limit of trees. When it begins its fall migration, this bird necessarily covers the full width of its breeding area. Then it proceeds almost directly south, or slightly southeasterly, the area covered by the majority of the species becoming gradually constricted, so that by the time it reaches the United States it is most numerous in a belt about 500 miles wide, extending across North Dakota to central Minnesota. Harris's sparrows are noted on migration with fair regularity east to the western shore of Lake Michigan, and west to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, but the great bulk of the species moves north and south through a relatively narrow path in the central part of the continent. Present knowledge suggests that the reason for this narrow migration range is the close association that Harris's sparrow maintains with a certain type of habitat, including brushy places, thickets, edges of groves, and weed patches. While these environmental conditions are found in other parts of the country, the region crossed by this sparrow presents almost a continuous succession of habitat of this type. Its winter range extends from southeastern Nebraska and northwestern Missouri, across eastern Kansas and Oklahoma and through a narrow section of central Texas, at places hardly more than 150 miles wide.
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Figure 17.—Distribution and migration of the scarlet tanager. During the breeding season individual scarlet tanagers may be 1,900 miles apart in an east-and-west line across the breeding range. In migration, however, the lines converge until in southern Central America they are not more than 100 miles apart. For migration paths of other widths see figures [16], [18], and [19].
The scarlet tanager presents another extreme case of narrowness of migration route ([fig. 17]), its breeding range extending in greatest width from New Brunswick to Saskatchewan, a distance of about 1,900 miles. As the birds move southward in fall their path of migration becomes more and more constricted, until at the time they leave the United States all are included in the 600-mile belt from eastern Texas to the Florida peninsula. Continuing to converge through Honduras and Costa Rica, the boundaries there are not more than 100 miles apart. The species winters in northwestern South America, where it spreads out over most of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
The rose-breasted grosbeak also leaves the United States through the 700-mile stretch from eastern Texas to Appalachicola Bay, but thereafter the lines do dot further converge, as this grosbeak enters the northern part of its winter quarters in Central America and South America through a door of about the same width ([fig. 18]).
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