1500 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part 3 



margined terminally with paler and marked with a broad median tear-shaped 

 (mostly concealed) space of blackish; tertials mostly blackish, but outer webs 

 chiefly brown, passing into a paler (sometimes pale grayish or almost grayish 

 white) hue terminally; rest of remiges dusky, edged with paler or more grayish 

 brown; edge of wing white; a broad superciliary stripe of olive-gray, sometimes 

 approaching grayish white on lower portion; loral, suborbital, and auricular regions 

 darker olive-grayish, the latter margined above and below by narrow postocular 

 and rictal stripes of brown, these brown stripes sometimes narrowly streaked 

 with black; a broad malar stripe of dull white or pale buffy, margined below by a 

 conspicuous submalar stripe or triangular spot of black or mixed brown and 

 black; under parts white, the chest marked with wedge-shaped streaks of black, 

 more or less broadly edged with rusty brown, these streaks more or less coalesced 

 in the lower central portion of the chest, or upper breast, forming a more or less 

 conspicuous irregular spot; sides and flanks streaked with black and rusty brown, 

 the ground color, especially on flanks, more or less tinged with pale olive-grayish 

 or buffy; under tail-coverts white or pale buffy, more or less streaked with brown; 

 maxilla dusky brown, paler on tomia; mandible horn color; iris brown; tarsi 

 pale brown, toes darker. 



Albinism occurs in song sparrows, and Root (1944) reports a 

 banded individual that acquired a considerable degree of whiteness 

 during a 28-day period in early autumn, presumably as the result 

 of molt. 



Food. — S. D. Judd (1901) has described the diet of song sparrows 

 without regard to race. For the year, animal matter constitutes 

 34 percent of the total food, the greatest amount being taken from 

 May to August, when insects represent about half the bird's food. 

 Ground-, leaf-, and clickbeetles, weevils, and other beetles rank 

 first in number; grasshoppers, locusts, larvae such as the cutworm 

 and army-worm, ants, wasps, ichneumon flies, bugs, leaf-hoppers, 

 larvae and imagos of horse-flies, etc., are also taken. The remaining 

 two-thirds of the diet is composed of seeds of crabgrass and pigeon- 

 grass, timothy, old-witch grass, barnyard grass, panic-grasses, 

 orchard and yard grasses; knotweeds, wild sunflower, lamb's 

 quarters, gromwell, purslane, amaranth, dandelion, chickweed, 

 dock, ragweed, sheep-sorrel and wood-sorrel; a little grain, largely 

 waste; and, before the seeds have ripened, wild berries and fruits 

 such as blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, elderberries, and 

 raspberries, wild cherries and grapes, and woodbine berries. The 

 species is very beneficial as a destroyer of injurious insects and weed 

 seeds. Judd says, "Only 2 per cent of the food consists of useful 

 insects, while 18 per cent is composed of injurious insects; grain, 

 largely waste, amounts to only 4 per cent, while the seeds of various 

 species of weeds constitute 50 per cent." 



W. L. Dawson (1923), writing of song sparrows of no specified race, 

 says that a bird "sometimes seizes and devours small minnows." 



