Handbook of Nature-Study 



THE CHIPPING SPARROW 



Teacher's Story 



HIS midget lives in our midst, and yet, not among all 

 bird kind, is there one which so ignores us as does the 

 chippy. It builds its nest about our houses, it hunts 

 for food all over our premises, it sings like a tuneful 

 grasshopper in our ears, it brings up its young to dis- 

 regard us, and every hour of the day it "tsip-tsips" us 

 to scorn. And, although it has well earned the name 

 of "doorstep sparrow," since it frugally gathers the 

 crumbs about our kitchen doors, yet it rarely be- 

 comes tame or can be induced to eat from the hand, unless it is trained 

 so to do as a nestling. 



Its cinnamon-brown cap and tiny black forehead, the gray streak over 

 the eye and the black through it, the gray cheeks and the pale gray, 

 unspotted breast distinguish it from the other sparrows, although its 

 brown back streaked with darker, and brown wings and blackish tail 

 have a very sparrowish look; the two whitish wing bars are not striking; 

 it has a bill fitted for shelling seeds, a characteristic of all the sparrows. 

 Despite its seed-eating bill, the chippy's food is thirty-eight per-cent 

 insects, and everyone should read what Mr. Forbush says about the good 

 work this little bird does in our gardens and to our trees. It takes in 

 large numbers cabbage caterpillars, the pea louse, the beet leaf-miners, 

 leaf hoppers, grasshoppers, cutworms, and does its best to annihilate the 

 caterpillars of the terrible gypsy and browntail moths. In fact, it works 

 for our benefit even in its vegetable food, as this consists largely of the 

 seeds of weeds and undesirable grasses. It will often fly up from its 

 perch after flies or moths, like a flycatcher; and the next time we note it, 

 it will be hopping around hunting for the crumbs we have scattered for it 

 on the piazza floor. The song of the chippy is more interesting to it than 

 to us; it is a continuous performance of high, shrill, rapid notes, all alike 

 so far as I can detect ; when it utters many of these in rapid succession it 

 is singing, but when it gives them singly they are call notes or mere 

 conversation. 



One peculiarity of the nest has given this sparrow the common name 

 of hair-bird, for the lining is almost always of long, coarse hair, usually 

 treasure trove from the tails of horses or cattle switched off against boards, 

 burs or other obstacles. Of the many nests I have examined, black 

 horsehair was the usual lining; but two nests in our yard show the 

 chippy to be a resourceful bird ; evidently the hair market was exhausted 

 and the soft, dead needles of the white pine were used instead and made 

 a most satisfactory lining. The nest is tiny and shallow; the outside is 

 of fine grass or rootlets carefully but not closely woven together; it is 

 placed in vine or tree, usually not more than ten or fifteen feet from the 

 ground; a vine of a piazza is a favorite nesting site. Once a bold pair 

 built directly above the entrance to our front door and mingled cheer- 

 fully with other visitors. Usually, however, the nest is so hidden that it 

 is not discovered until after the leaves have fallen. The eggs are light 

 blue tinged with green, with fine, purplish brown specks or markings 

 scrawled about the larger end. 



