The nest of this bird is usually, if not always, on the ground, but in various situations, as I have found them on a hillside, in the midst of low underbrush, in a swampy thicket, at the foot of some large tree in a garden, as at Halifax, by the edge of a small pond, or in a hollow and decaying stump. Their nest is large, deep, and capacious, with a base of moss or coarse grasses, woven with finer stems above and lined with hair, a few feathers, fine rootlets of plants or soft grasses. The eggs vary from four to seven in number. Their ground-color is of a pale green or a greenish-white, marked over the entire egg with a fox-colored or rusty brown. Occasionally these markings are sparsely scattered, permitting the ground to be plainly visible, but generally they are so very abundant as to cover the entire egg so closely as to conceal all other shade, and give to the whole a deep uniform rufous-brown hue, through which the under color of light green is hardly distinguishable. They measure .90 by .68 of an inch.
Zonotrichia querula, Gambel.
HARRIS’S SPARROW; BLACK-HOODED SPARROW.
Fringilla querula, Nuttall, Man. I, (2d ed.,) 1840, 555 (Westport, Mo.). Zonotrichia querula, Gambel, J. A. N. Sc. 2d Ser. I, 1847, 51.—Bonap. Consp. 1850, 478.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 462.—Allen, Amer. Naturalist, May, 1872. Fringilla harrisi, Aud. Birds Am. VII, 1843, 331, pl. cccclxxxiv. Fringilla comata, Pr. Max. Reise II, 1841.—Ib. Cab. Jour. VI, 1858, 279. Zonotrichia comata, Bp. Consp. 1850, 479.
Sp. Char. Hood and nape, sides of head anterior to and including the eyes, chin, throat, and a few spots in the middle of the upper part of the breast and on its sides, black. Sides of head and neck ash-gray, with the trace of a narrow crescent back of the ear-coverts. Interscapular region of back with the feathers reddish-brown streaked with dark brown. Breast and belly clear white. Sides of body light brownish, streaked. Two narrow white bands across the greater and middle coverts. Length about 7 inches; wing, 3.40; tail, 3.65.
Hab. Missouri River, above Fort Leavenworth. Chillicothe, Mo. (Hoy). Very common in Eastern Kansas (Allen). San Antonio, Texas, spring (Dresser, Ibis, 1865, 488).
The bill of this species appears to be yellowish-red. More immature specimens vary in having the black of the head above more restricted, the nape and sides of the head to the bill pale reddish-brown, lighter on the latter region. Others have the feathers of the anterior portion of the hood edged with whitish. In all there is generally a trace of black anterior to the eye.
This species has a considerably larger bill than Z. leucophrys, the mandible especially.
Habits. This species was first described in 1840, by Mr. Nuttall, from specimens obtained by him near Independence, Mo., near the close of the month of April. He again met with them on the following 5th of May, when not far from the banks of the Little Vermilion River, a branch of the Kansas. He found them frequenting thickets, and uttering, chiefly in the early morning, but also occasionally at other parts of the day, a long, drawling, faint, solemn, and monotonous succession of notes, resembling tē-dē-dē-dē.
Since then but little additional information has been obtained in regard to their general habits, their geographical distribution, or their mode of breeding, single specimens only having been taken at considerable intervals in the valley of the Missouri and elsewhere until 1872. Two specimens were secured by Mr. Dresser, near San Antonio, in Western Texas, occurring on the Medina River during their spring migrations. More recently this bird was taken twice by Mr. H. W. Parker, in Jasper County, Iowa. The latest of these was secured May 19.