198 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 



(5). The nest is built on the ground, in the various summer- 

 haunts of this bird. It is composed chiefly of diy grasses, 

 and in Eastern Massachusetts is finished in the second week of 

 May. Four or five eggs are then laid, averaging -75 X '55 of 

 an inch, exhibiting great variation, and often approaching 

 those of other sparrows. Some are dull white, faintly and 

 minutely marked, most thickly at the crown. Dr. Brewer 

 says : " In some the ground-color, which is of a greenish-white, 

 is plainly visible, being only partially covered with blotches 

 of brown, shaded with red and purple. These blotches are 

 more numerous about the larger end, becoming confluent and 

 forming a corona. In others the ground-color is entirely con- 

 cealed by confluent ferruginous fine dots, over which are darker 

 markings of brown and purple and a still darker ring of the 

 same about the larger end." 



(c). The Savannah Sparrows show a marked preference for 

 the sea-coast, and the islands near it, and are to be found much 

 farther ^o the northward along the coast-line than in the inte- 

 rior, where, however, they frequently occur to the southward of 

 the mountain-chains in northern New England. To the inland, 

 rather than along the shore, they are locally distributed, being 

 the most colonial of all our sparrows. Though collective, they 

 do not cluster as the swallov,-s do, but many often pass the 

 summer in one place, and several pairs frequent the same field, 

 or the same strip of shore. They reach Eastern Massachu- 

 setts, where they are particularly "abundant in the salt-water 

 marshes and their neighborhood," in the second or third week 

 of April, but many soon pass to the northward. 



They have a settlement, if I may so call it, at a place in the 

 White Mountains, where I made the following observations. 

 They there inhabited the fields and pasture-lands. In the 

 earlier part of July they were seen in small flocks, or families, 

 to visit gardens in the search of food ; and, even so late as the 

 twenty-third of that month, a nest was found containing freshly 

 laid eggs. As well-grown young were also then observed, they 

 doubtless reared two broods ; and certainly until the latter 

 part of August they remained in the fields where they had 



