A. O. U. No. 583. Melospiza lincolnii (Aud.).

Synonyms.—Lincoln’s Song Sparrow. Lincoln Finch.

Description.—Adults: Above, much like M. melodia montana, but crown brighter rufous, and with more decided black markings: back browner and more broadly and smartly streaked with black; the gray of back sometimes with a bluish and sometimes with an olivaceous tinge; below, throat and belly white, the former never quite immaculate, but with small arrow-shaped black marks; sides of head and neck and remaining underparts creamy buff, everywhere marked by elongated and sharply defined black streaks; usually an abrupt dusky spot on center of breast; bill blackish above, lighter below, feet brownish. Length about 5.75 (146.1); av. of six specimens; wing 2.48 (63); tail 2.11 (53.6); bill .40 (10.2).

Recognition Marks.—Warbler size; bears general resemblance to Song Sparrow, from which it is clearly distinguished by buffy chest-band, and by narrow, sharp streaks of breast and sides.

Nesting.—Nest: much like that of Rusty Song Sparrow, of dried grasses, etc., usually on ground, rarely in bushes. Eggs: 3 or 4, greenish white spotted and blotched with chestnut and grayish. Av. size, .80 × .58 (20.3 × 14.7). Season: June, July; two (?) broods.

General Range.—North America at large breeding chiefly north of the United States (at least as far as the Yukon Valley) and in the higher parts of the Rocky Mountains and the Cascade-Sierras; south in winter to Panama.

Range in Washington.—Imperfectly made out—probably not rare spring and fall migrant, at least west of the Cascades; found breeding in the Rainier National Park.

Authorities.—[“Lincoln’s Finch,” Johnson, Rep. Gov. W. T. 1884 (1885), 22.] Bowles and Dawson, Auk, XXV. Oct. 1908, p. 483.

Specimens.—(U. of W.) Prov. B.

Modesty is a beautiful trait, and, I suppose, if we had always to choose between the brazen arrogance of the English Sparrow and the shy timorousness of this bird-afraid-of-his-shadow, we should feel obliged to accept the latter. But why should a bird of such inconspicuous color steal silently thru our forests and slink along our streams with bated breath as if in mortal dread of the human eye? Are we then such hobgloblins?

Thrice only have I seen this bird, and then in northern Ohio. On the first occasion two of us followed a twinkling suspicion along a shadowy woodland stream for upwards of a hundred yards. Finally we neared the edge of the woods. There was light! exposure! recognition! With an inward groan the flitting shape quitted the last brush-pile and rose twenty feet to a tree-limb. Just an instant—but enough for our purpose—and he had whisked over our heads, hot-wing upon the dusky back trail. That same May day we came upon a little company of these Sparrows halted by the forbidding aspect of Lake Erie, and dallying for the nonce in the dense thickets which skirted a sluggish tributary. Here they skulked like moles, and it was only by patient endeavor that we were able to cut out a single bird and constrain it to intermittent exposure at the edge of the stream. Here, at intervals, from the opposite bank, we eagerly took note of its head-stripes, pale streaked breast, and very demure airs, and listened to snatches of a sweet but very weak song, with which the bird favored us in spite of our “persecution.” Is it any wonder that the Lincoln Sparrow is so little known to fame?

While rated a regular summer resident of British America and Alaska, Lincoln’s Sparrow has also been found breeding in the mountains of eastern Oregon, California, Utah, and Colorado. It ought, therefore to occur in Washington; but we have only to shrug our shoulders and say with the lawyer, non est inventus. Indeed, the only positive record we have of the bird’s occurrence at any season is that of a specimen taken by A. Gordon Bowles, Jr., in Wright’s Park, Tacoma, May 22, 1906.

So much penned in good faith in April, 1908. In June of the same year the good fairy of the bird-man piloted him to a spot where the Lincoln Sparrows were so numerously and so thoroly at home, that he began to wonder whether he might not have been dreaming after all for the past quarter of a century. Ten or a dozen pairs were found occupying the well-known swamp at Longmire’s Springs. On the 30th of June they were much more in evidence than the Rusty Song Sparrows, which occupied the same grassy fastnesses; and altho the females were not done waiting on overgrown babies, the males were loudly urging their second suits.

Taken at Longmire’s Springs.
LINCOLN’S SONG SPARROW.
ALLAN BROOKS AFTER PHOTO BY THE AUTHOR.

The song of the Lincoln Sparrow is of a distinctly musical order, being gushing, vivacious, and wren-like in quality, rather than lisping and wooden, like so many of our sparrow songs. Indeed, the bird shows a much stronger relationship in song to the Purple Finch than to its immediate congeners, the Song Sparrows. The principal strain is gurgling, rolling, and spontaneous, and the bird has ever the trick of adding two or three inconsequential notes at the end of his ditty, quite in approved Purple Finch fashion. “Linkup, tinkup perly werly willie willie weeee (dim.)” said one; “Riggle, jiggle, eet eet eet eer oor,” another. “Che willy willy willy che quill”; “Lee lee lee quilly willy willy,” and other such, came with full force and freshness at a hundred yards to the listeners on the back porch at Longmire’s.

When studied in the swamp, the Lincoln Finches were found to be more reluctant than Song Sparrows to expose themselves, but one pair, anxious for their young, sat out against a clear sky again and again. The bird was seen occasionally to erect its crown feathers in inquiry or excitement, as do Chipping Sparrow, Nuttall Sparrow, et al. A Yellow Warbler, stumbling into the manorial bush, was set upon furiously; but she made off philosophically, knowing that her punishment was after the accepted code. A Rusty Song Sparrow, however, was allowed to sit quietly at a foot’s remove, not, apparently, because he was so much bigger, nor even because nearer of kin, but rather because of common parental anxiety. The contrast here was instructive; the Lincoln Sparrow being not only smaller but more lightly colored and with a sharp-cut streakiness of plumage. A comparison of many examples showed the similarity of head pattern between the two Sparrows to be very noticeable, while the buffy tinge of the Lincoln’s breast would appear to be one of its least constant marks.

An alleged sub-species, Forbush’s Sparrow, M. l. striata, “Similar to M. lincolni but superciliary stripes and upperparts more strongly olivaceous, and dark streaks especially on back and upper tail-coverts, coarser, blacker, and more numerous,” has been ascribed to British Columbia and western Washington, but the material at hand is meager and inconclusive, and the proposed form has been passed upon adversely by Ridgway.