Tliamne

126 University of California Publications in Zoology [Vou 30

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those records were specifically discredited. The only other published
accounts bearing upon this subject that I have seen are by Bishop
(1900, p. 85), who describes an unfinished nest found in White Pass;
and by Osgood (1904, p. 75), who casually mentions ‘‘several’’ nests
found at Tanine Bay, Alaska Peninsula, the latter part of June,
containing from four to six eggs each.

I, myself, had been twice before on the nesting grounds of the
golden-crowned sparrow, and the fact that I had failed to find nests
then spurred me on to renewed efforts on this third opportunity. In
British Columbia this bird is a summer visitant at high altitudes, nest-
ing above the limit of upright timber. In the Atlin region it is so
closely restricted to the heights that I did not see even a migrant in
the lowlands. .

On May 29 we made our first climb above timber line, to the top of
Monarch Mountain, some 4500 feet altitude, about three miles south
of Atlin. The golden-crowned sparrows had arrived and were singing
from the tops of the balsam thickets, but no nest building was detected.
This mountain top, as it proved, was peculiarly adapted to the needs
of this species. At least there were more of the birds here within a
relatively limited area than we saw anywhere else. Long stretches of
rolling hilltops, grass-covered for the most part, were interspersed with
scattered thickets of prostrate or stunted balsam, and with larger areas
of trailing birch. This birch was in most places not over knee high
and easily walked over. Little lakelets occupied some of the hollows,
and from them small streams flowed part way down the mountain.
Lakes and streams both were almost or entirely dry before the summer
was over.

On June 19 we returned to this same summit, to make a thorough
search for nests. A general notion that these would be in the balsams,
as the most effective cover in sight, led us first to direct our attention
to these thickets, the more so as they formed the singing perches of the
male birds. Half an hour’s search brought no results other than the
discovery of old robin nests, so the balsams were abandoned for the
time. A little later, as I was traversing a dry, open ridge, ploughing
through a mat of birch, a sparrow darted out some eight or ten feet
away, not to fly, but to scuttle, mouse-like, along the ground under
the sparse, sprawling branches. A brief search disclosed the nest (see

*pl. 7, fig. 6). A ledge of rock protruded a few inches from the ground
in the center of the thicket, and the nest was sunk against this shelter,
fairly well concealed by the vegetation above. There were.five eggs,