226 YELLOW-WINGED SPARROW 



are exceedingly beneficial, their food consisting, 

 during the breeding time, mostly of insects, and 

 in fall and winter they eat large quantities of 

 the seeds of noxious weeds. Unfortunately," he 

 goes on to say, " these and other song birds are 

 killed by the thousand in the south by the negroes 

 for the kitchen, and on the French market in 

 New Orleans large masses of these birds are 

 offered for sale during the whole winter. This 

 shameless slaughter of our native song birds 

 should be stopped by stringently enforced laws 

 for their protection." 



Yellow-winged Sparrow; Grasshopper Spar- 

 row : Ammodramus savannarum passerinus. 



Above blackish, with brown and buff streaks ; crown blackish 

 with buff line through centre ; helow uristreaked, washed with 

 buffy. Tail, even, pointed ; bend of wing yellow. Length, about 

 h\ inches. 



Geographic Distribution. — Eastern North America ; breeds 

 from the Gulf states northward to Massachusetts, southern 

 Canada, and Minnesota ; winters from North Carolina to Cuba 

 and Central America. 



Mr. Ridgway says that in Illinois this little 

 bird is known " in all cultivated portions of the 

 State, as well as on the open prairie. To the 

 rural population it is known as the ' Grass-bird,' 

 ' Ground-bird,' or ' Grasshopper-bird,' the lat- 

 ter appellation being derived from its grasshop- 

 per-like song, which it utters from the end of a 

 fence-stake, the top of a tall weed-stalk, or as it 



