1408 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 J'art s 



repeated several times when the birds are cornered beneath a canopy 

 of low branches with no chance of escape to a higher perch. 



When migrants are disturbed on the ground, they usually seek a 

 higher perch 25 to 50 feet from the ground. There they utter the 

 other call, a fine, high-pitched "tseep," a very feeble note indeed for 

 such a robust and dignified-looking sparrow, which apparently acts 

 as a rallying or location note. 



A modified form of the alarm "tchek" serves as a communal call 

 when migrating fox sparrows are going to roost, which they usually 

 do in young, shrubby evergreens or sometimes in a deciduous hedge. 

 At dusk on Nov. 2, 1947, we watched a small group fly into a shrubby 

 pine on the edge of a wood. As the birds mounted slowly from branch 

 to branch in the manner of white-thoats going to roost, one after 

 another uttered a single modified "tchek," recalling again certain 

 notes of the junco and the hermit thrush. Usually fox sparrows 

 roost at night only a few feet above the ground in heavy cover. 



Behavior. — Although the fox sparrow is generally regarded as a 

 robust, vigorous bird that often sings best in stormy weather, most 

 writers stress its inherent shyness. In southwestern Pennsylvania 

 Thomas D. Burleigh (1923) considers it usually "wary and hard to 

 approach and as it likes dense underbrush it would often be overlooked 

 were it not for the disturbance it makes as it scratches vigorously in 

 the dead leaves." 



Fox sparrows get along amicably with one another as a rule, but 

 occasionally become a^iarrelsome. Francis B. White (1937) writes of 

 fox sparrows caught in an April blizzard in New Hampshire and feeding 

 in the beds of brooks: "Though mingling amicably with other species 

 then, they fight furiously among themselves, towering up several feet, 

 emitting a peculiar note, shrill, prolonged — a kind of squeal. * * * On 

 one occasion, two were watched facing each other on the snow and 

 singing defiantly in alternating strains." 



They are also inclined to be pugnacious when other species invade 

 their territory. The first fox sparrow to come to our garden at 

 Ulverton, Quebec, appeared late the afternoon of Apr. 26, 1956, and 

 set up a temporary feeding territory in a leaf-covered wildflower patch 

 adjoining a thick spruce hedge. At first it was rather diffident as it 

 sortied from the shelter of the hedge to scratch among the dead leaves 

 for millet seed fallen from a food tray, and doubtless some insect food. 

 As it fed there intermittently the next few days, it lost much of its 

 timidity. Whenever a newly-arrived white-throated sparrow tried to 

 feed in the same area, the fox sparrow crouched low, slimmed its body, 

 darted at the white-throat with lowered head and opened bill and 

 forced it to retreat. It sang the "whisper" song many times in 

 sunshine and rain from concealed perches in the hedge. 



