218 LAND-BIRDS. 



ings, whicli form a ring about the large end (and are rarely 

 like the scrawls on the eggs of the Blackbirds (§ 17, IV). 

 In Massachusetts, two sets of four or ^\e * are usually laid 

 every year, the first of which commonly appears about the 

 first of June. 



c. The Chipping Sparrows are the most familiar and 

 abundant summer residents, in Massachusetts, of all the 

 numerous Finches. They reach the neighborhood of Boston 

 about the twentieth of April, but are not at that season gre- 

 garious, and about the first of May become abundant, soon 

 afterwards beginning to build their nests. They inhabit 

 more or less pasture-land, but particularly affect the neigh- 

 borhood of man — to such a degree that they were formerly 

 abundant on Boston Common, though they have lately been 

 somewhat supplanted by the English Sparrows. They fre- 

 quent lawns, orchards, gardens, the neighborhood of houses, 

 and public ways. They often obtain on the roadsides the 

 small seeds which constitute a part of their food, and, when 

 so doing, are rarely disturbed by the approach of man. 

 They feed also very largely in summer upon small caterpil- 

 lars, inclusive of the dreaded canker-worms, and are thus 

 beneficial. Towards one another they are rather pugnacious, 

 but perhaps playfully so. Their flight, never a long one, is 

 in no way peculiar. They often perch upon fences, and 

 sometimes between two narrowly separated pickets, which 

 well illustrates their littleness. They rarely perch or fly at 

 any great height from the ground, and indeed are not com- 

 monly to be seen in tall trees, unless in the lower branches, 

 for instance, of the pines, in which they often build their 

 nests. There is hardly a populated district of Massachusetts 

 where they are not common, but to the northward of that 

 State they gradually become rarer, though in summer found 

 in arctic countries. In northern New Hampshire, they are 

 not very numerous, and there they collect in small flocks as 

 early as August. In Massachusetts they congregate in Sep- 

 tember, sometimes to the number of a hundred, but do not 

 associate much with other species. They disappear in the 



* The number of eggs in a set rarely exceeds four. — W. B. 



