31(3 



sparrow (13 per cent.). In the small number of orchards traversed 

 the English sparrow was at this time much the most abundant bird 

 (51 per cent.). The other common species were the goldfinch (8 

 per cent.), the field-sparrow (4 per cent.), and a few passing mi- 

 grants — the myrtle warbler and the white-throated sparrow, for ex- 

 ample. (See Table V.) 



The Principal Species Separately. 



English Sparrows. — From these tables we learn that about two 

 thirds of the English sparrows were in corn fields and pastures, and 

 in about equal numbers in each ; that approximately half as many were 

 found in waste weedy fields as in pastures; and that the remainder 

 were about equally divided between barn-yards and orchards. Some 

 52 per cent, of this species — those in corn fields, stubble, and waste 

 lands — were among weeds, and 40 per cent, of them were following 

 farm stock in pastures and yards. Those in orchards (6 per cent.) 

 were doubtless there mainly for shelter and rest. The table of num- 

 bers per square mile (Table VI.) shows that orchards were the favor- 

 ite resort of the sparrows. Barn-yards, pastures, and corn fields were 

 their principal feeding grounds, and only scattering numbers occurred 

 in stubble, meadows, and plowed fields. Not a single one of the 1620 

 sparrows noted on this trip was seen in the 59 fields of young wheat. 

 These sparrows were, in a word, barn-yard, corn-field, and pasture 

 birds, and were doubtless feeding mainly on weed seeds and undi- 

 gested fragments of grain. 



Crow-blackbirds and Crozvs. — Blackbirds, on the other hand, 

 were seen to be at this time essentially birds of the pasture, 90 per 

 cent, of them occurring there, and only 4 per cent, in corn fields, 4 

 per cent, in stubble, and 2 per cent, in farmyards. Practically the 

 same may be said of the crows, whose ratios of abundance are close 

 copies of the preceding excepting for the 6 per cent, on plowed ground, 

 the 1 per cent, in meadows, and the absence of crows from barn-yards. 

 During this whole trip of 192 miles, only 12 crows and 21 black- 

 birds were seen in the 1300 acres of corn covered by these observa- 

 tions — an average of 6 crows and 10 blackbirds per square mile of 

 corn. It was suggestive of a useful feature of the habits of crows 

 that an average of 79 of these birds per square mile were seen on 

 plowed ground, where they could have found little if any food except 

 insect larvae — mainly white-grubs. The record for blackbirds is dis- 

 turbed by the fact that they were moving southward when the trip 

 began, as is shown by their occurrence at the rate of 7.2 per mile 

 of travel during the first half of the period of this trip and at only 

 1.1 per mile during the last half. 



