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Nesting of Harris's Sparrow (Zonotrichia Querula) at Churchill, Manitoba

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Nesting of Harris's Sparrow (Zonotrichia Querula) at Churchill, Manitoba 166 SEMPLEAND SUTTON, Nesting ofHarris's Sparrow. [April[Auk NESTING OF HARRIS'S SPARROW (ZONOTRICHIA QUERULA) AT CHURCHILL, MANITOBA. BY JOHN BONNER SEMPLE AND GEORGE MIKSCH SUTTON. ! Plates VI-VIII. UNDERa thin clump of slender,tough-twigged Labrador tea, whoseoutermost branches bear at their tipspale green bud dusters, and whosenarrow, downward-slanting leaves glisten in the spruce- filteredsunlight; cupped in the dampcrown of a sphagnumisland- hummockamong the conifers,its rim only a few inchesabove the ice-filmedwater, is a nest lined with fine grass. In this nest, and shadowedso deeplyas to appear of a dark, indefinitecolor, are four eggs. Such is man's first recordedglimpse of the eggsof Harris's Sparrowin the wildernesssummer home of the bird. The storyof the discoveryand naming of thishandsome sparrow, 2 of the mysterywhich so long surrounded its nestingground, and of the all but century-longsearch for its eggs,forms one of the most interestingchapters in the annalsof Americanornithology. Harry Harris('The Auk,' Vol. XXXVI, 1919,pp. 180-190)has given us sucha full accountof the earlierdiscoveries of the speciesby Nut- tall, by Maximilian, Prince of Wied, and by Audubon; and Pro- fessorsMyron H. Swenkand O. A. Stevens('The Wilson Bulletin,' Vol. XLI, 1929,pp. 129-177)have presentedsuch an exhaustive treatise on its behavior during migration and in winter, that now thereis need for nomore than a discussionof the springand summer activitiesof the bird in its northernnesting ground. The breedingrange of Harris's Spaxrowis now believed to • Tho authors are dooply indobted to Mr. Bayard H. Christy, of Sowickloy, Ponnsylvania, for a critical reading of this manuscript; to Mr. W. E. Clydo Todd, of tho Carnogio Museum, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for assistanco in measuring, describing, and photographing tho oggs; and to Mr. Porcy A. Taverner, of tho Canadian National Museum, Ottawa, Ontario, for many helpful suggostions. • The fact that Nuttali's English namo "Mourning Finch" has been supersedod by Audubon's "Harris's Finch," whoreas his classical namo querula has ondured, is highly interesting to studonts of ornithological nomenclaturo. "Mourning Sparrow" would, indeed, boa fitting namo for tho black-cowled, sad-voiced bird. Audubon named tho sparrow (Birds of America, 8 vo. Ed., Vol. VII, 1844, p. 331) aftor his "oxeellent and constant friend EDWARD HARRIS, Esq.," who apparently shot at least two of tho spocimons upon which Audubon based his description. T• Avi•, Vol.. XLIX. Px•x?r•VI. Photos by O. S. Pettingill, Jr. HARRIS'SSPARROW NEAR NEST• CHURCHILL•MANITOBA. extend$rom the regionof Churchill,on HudsonBay, weltwardand northwestwardto the easternshore of Great Bear Lake, probably throughoutthe belt of stuntedtrees which is characteristicof the Hudsonian Life Zone, just south of the vast Arctic Barren Grounds. This breedingground has beenmore or lessdefinitely knownfor thirty years;yet priorto the spr'mgof 1031no ornltholo- gist,to the best0f our knowledge,had ever seena nestwith eggs. The reasonthis part of the life-cycleof the specieshas remained so longunknown is not that the bird is especiallyrare, or of localor irregularoccurrenee, but that, up to the year1020, the regionwhere it nestswas all butinaccessiblein the nestingseason.. The completionof the HudsonBay CanadianGovernment Rail- way in 1020opened up a vast territory,•a territory'.which holds muchof interestfor the ornithologist.The terminusof thisrailway, Churchill,Manitoba, is the very point at whichEdward A. Preble (1002, A BiologicalInvestigation of the Hudson Bay Region, pp. 120-121),in 1000, and Percy A. Taverner,• in 1030, found Harris's Sparrowcommon during the summer;and it was at this convenientpoint that our expeditiondecided to centerits activi- ties duringthe springof 1031. Churchill(formerly known as Fort Churchill)is situatedat the mouthof the ChurchillRiver, in Latitude50 ø N., directlynorth of' extremeeastern Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Our party was composedof four men. There were, in additionto the authors; l•ir. Bert C. Lloyd, of Davidson,Saskatchewan, an activeyoung collectorwho had had threeyears of fieldexperience in the Church- ill region,and iVlr.Olin SewallPettingill, Jr., of Middleton,Massa-. chusetts,.who accompaniedus principallyin' the capacityof pho? tographer. The'trip from Winnipegto Churchill,via The Pas,required but - threed•ys and we wereComfortable in ourantiquated Pullman car, even.on the last lap of our journey,although the aspectof the: countrysidebecame more ,wintry hour by houras wemoved north- ward. The crossingof this samecountry in spring,by dog-team, afoot,or by canoe(and formerlyno other means.were available) would have req.ulred weeks. The •repoi•'on Mr. Taverner's field work in the •Ohurchlllregion has not yet appea•',ed,' ...... :- 168 SEMELEAND SUTTON, Nesting ofHarris's Sparrow. [April[Auk At The Pas, on May 23 (a bright, pleasantday), we saw many Harris's Sparrows,most of them in flocksof six or eightindividuals, and heardmany in full song. They wereespecially abundant along the woodedshore of a small lake at the edge of town and in the openspruce forest where, among the deadleaves under the shrub- bery they scratchednoisily. Here we noted also two pairs of White-throatedSparrows (Zonotrlchia albicollis), the males in full song. On May 24, at Gillam, 326 milesnortheast of The Pas, we saw neither Harris's nor White-throated Sparrows,though two Gam- bel's Sparrows,Zonotrlchia leucophrys garabeli, a Tree Sparrow,a few Lapland Longspurs,a few Robins,a Flicker, three GreaterYel- low-legs,a Baird's Sandpiper,and a SemipalmatedPlover were ob- servednot far from the railway station. Gillam liesin the migra- tory path of Harris's Sparrow,so the reasonwe did not find the speciesthere is probablythat it had not yet arrived. Whether or not the White-throatedSparrow occurs there in summerwe cannot say. As we journeyednorthward from Gillam, we passedthrough spruceforests which graduallybecame lower and thinner. The terrain was monotonouslyflat, savewhere the railway followedor crosseda river. Everywhere among the trees were snowdrifts, many of them evidentlyfive or six feet deep; snowflurries fre- quently envelopedthe train; flocks of migrating Snow Buntings and Lapland Longspursflew about us, boundinglow over the woodlands. Finally, when within a hundredmiles of Churchill, we beganto crossgreat stretches of open,treeless barrens, moss and grass-coveredtundra, betweenthe tonguesof spruceforest. At Churchillwe steppedfrom the train into the midstof a great, winter-boundeonstrnetion camp. Here were barracksfor sixteen hundred workmen; on the river bank stood a huge, flat structure which appearedto be a solid cementblock: the beginningsof a gigantic elevator which, when finished,would provide storage spacefor two and onehalf millionbushels of grain;this way and that led narrow-gaugerailway tracks, over which, later, dinkey engineswere to run, pulling gravel-ears,work-ears, and water- tanks; on the hill stood missionbuildings, small, one roomed, woodenbank buildings,a motionpicture 'palace,' the headquarters ThE AUK, VOL. XLIX. PLATEVII. l•hotos by O. S. Pettingill, Jr. NESTING SITE AND NEST (No. 2) OF I-IARRIS'SSPARROW, CHURCHILL, MANITOBA. Vol. XLIX] 1932 j SEMPLEAND SU•I•ON, .N'e•'ti7• of Harris's•parrow. 169 of the Royal CanadianMounted Police,and a wirelessstation. Thiswas Churchill, a portin themaking. As we piled our baggageupon a tractor-truck,we stumbled throughwet snowtwo feet deep. To the southwardof the rocky ridgewhich extends along the shoreof the bay the snowdriftwas twenty feet deep;the mile-broadriver was frozenshut for miles inlandfrom its mouth;the bay, at the very mouthof the river, was moreor lessopen, but beyondlay a vast,dreary waste of icech, mlcs, packedsolidly enough in someplaces to permitcrossing afoot or with dog-teamand komatik, but elsewheremoving about with tide, wind,and river current. Our tent waspitched at the river mouth, in a little gully amongthe rocks. On the followingday we learnedthat by walkinginland along the easternbank of the river for aboutsix mileswe mightreach woodedcountry. There,amid waist-deep, ice-sheeted pools, slushy, gray drifts,and mud-bottomedmuskeg streams, were to be found thickstands of sprucetrees, some of themthirty, perhaps even forty feet high, with trunks a foot or more in diameterat the base; tamaracks,not yet hungwith their lacy foliage;willows, in thick tanglesat the edgesof the sprucewoods; and low shrubs,with narrow,rhododendron-like leaves. Betweenthe woodlands and the river mouth,and not morethan half a mile inlandfrom the bay, wasan areathickly setwith small,ice-bound lakes. To the westof the river roserock-faced 'hills, on whosesheltered slopesgrew irregular patches of stuntedspruce, and north of these extendeda long,barren point whichformed the easternshore of Buttoh's Bay. On May 25 we recordedamong other summerresident species, Lapland Longspurs,Piplts, Horned Larks, Pintails, and Semi- palmatedPlovers. Furthermore,we foundthat, althoughthere wasmuch snow everywhere, there were also extensive bare areas on the opentundra and along the exposedridges, and that someof the smaller,shallower ponds were actually partly open. The temperature,these first few days,ranged from 28ø F. to about60 ø F. duringthe daytime. Most of the time the mercury stooddisagreeably near the freezing-point.It wascolder at night, of course. We had considerable rain and snow. The wind was usually from the north. 170 S•rr• ANDSwrroN, Nesting ofHarris's Sparrow. •p•l According
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