About the Author(s)

Michael Carey was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana and gained his interest in the outdoors from his parents. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio, in 1968. After two years in the military, he received a Masters in Zoology and a Ph.D. in Ecology in 1977 from Indiana University. His doctoral research was a study of breeding ecology and mating systems in Indigo Buntings, under the guidance of Val Nolan, Jr. He has continued his interest in avian breeding systems working with Field Sparrows since 1986. Since 1978 he has been on the faculty of the University of Scranton, Pennsylvania where he tries to keep up with the bird work and a heavy load of teaching general biology, animal behavior, evolution, and environmental science. Address: Department of Biology, University of Scranton, Scranton, Pennsylvania 18510. Email: careym1@scranton.edu.

Dirk E. Burhans is currently completing the last field season of a Ph.D. on host-brood parasite interactions of forest-edge hosts, including Field Sparrows. He received a Bachelor’s of Arts degree from Antioch College in 1977, worked in New York as a graphic artist and naturalist, and completed additional courses at Hunter College and the State University of New York at Albany before returning to school fulltime. He is married and has one daughter. Address: Division of Biological Sciences, 105 Tucker Hall, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri 65211.

Douglas A. Nelson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He became interested in birds and animal behavior as an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota. This interest led him to the University of Michigan where he studied vocal communication in the Pigeon Guillemot as a student of Robert W. Storer. As a postdoctoral associate of Peter Marler’s, he studied song recognition in the Field Sparrow, and then song development in White-crowned Sparrows. He is currently Director of Bioacoustics at The Ohio State University, where he will continue to study song development in birds. Address: Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics, The Ohio State University, 1315 Kinnear Road, Columbus, OH 43212-1192  USA; borrorlab@osu.edu.