22 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



week, I loiind this same pair, wliicli I easily recognized, Imilding their nest 

 among some vines near my liouse, some eight feet from the ground. Tiiey 

 liad abandoned my neiglihor's grounds and taken refuge close to my house. 

 This situation they resorted to afterwards for several successive summers, each 

 season building two nests, never using the same nest a second time, although 

 each time it was left as clean and in as good condition as wlien first made. 

 Indeed, this species is remarkable for its cleanliness, both in its own person 

 and in its care of nestlings and nests. 



They feed their young chiefly with insects, especially small caterpillars ; 

 the destructive canker-worm is one of their favorite articles of food, also the 

 larvae of insects and the smaller moths. When crumbs of bread are given 

 them, they are eagerly gathered and taken to their nests. 



In tlie iMiddle States tliey ai-e said to have three broods in a season. This 

 may also be so in j^ew England, but I have never known one pair to have 

 more than two broods in the same summer, even when both had been suc- 

 cessfully reared. Nests found after Juh' have always been in cases where 

 some accident had befallen the preceding brood. 



The nest of the Song Sparrow, wliether built on ground, bush, or tree, is 

 always well and thoroughly made. Externally and at the base it consists of 

 stout stems of grasses, fibrous twigs of plants, and small sticks and rootlets. 

 These are strongly wrought together. Within is made a neat, weU-woven 

 basket of fine long stems of grasses, rarely anything else. On the ground 

 they are usually concealed beneatli a tuft of grass ; sometimes they make a 

 covered passage-way of several inches, leading to their nest. Wlien built 

 in a tree or shruli, tlie top is often sheltered by the branches or by dry 

 leaves, forming a co\-eriug to the structure. 



The eggs of the Song Sparrow are five in number, and have an average 

 measurement of .82 by .60 of an inch. They have a ground of a clay-color 

 or dirty wliite, and are spotted equally over the entire egg with blotches of 

 a rusty-brown, intermingled witli lighter shades of purple. In some these 

 markings are so numerous and confluent as to entirely conceal the ground- 

 color ; in others they are irregularly difiused over different parts, leaving 

 patches unmarked. Occasionally the eggs are unspotted, and are then not 

 unlike those of Zcucosticte griscinucha. 



Melospiza melodia var. fallax, B.urd. 



WESTERN SONG SPARSOW. 



Zmwlrichia fallax, B.\IRD, I'r. A. N. Sc. Ph. VIT, June, 1854, 119 (Pueblo Creek, New 

 Mexico), t Zonolrichia fasciata, (Gm.) Gambel, J. A. N. Sc. Ph. 2d Series, I, 1847, 

 49. Melospiza. fallax, Baikd, Birds N. Am. 1858, 481, pi. x.xvii, f. 2. — Kenserlt, 

 P. K. E. X, b. 1)1. xxvii, f. 2. — Cooi-f.k, Oni. Cal. I, 215. 



Si'. Char. Similar to var. melodia, but with the bill on the whole rather smaller, 

 more slender, and darker. Legs quite dusky, not yellow. Entire plumage of a more 



