EASTERN FOX SPARROW 1397 



In western Pennsylvania, however, W. E. C. Todd (1940) states: 



Single birds are the rule in our region and seldom are more than a few seen 

 together. * * * 



This hardy sparrow is one of the earlier spring migrants. Usually it appears 

 in March, before all the snow is gone, and terminates its stay before the end of 

 April * * *. [It] is a bird of the thicket and underbrush rather than of the deep 

 forest; it is fond of briery areas on the outskirts of woods, and of dense willow 

 and weedy growths along streams. The latter habitat is strikingly reminescent 

 of its usual haunts in the north country. Actually the bird is a sort of sublimated 

 Song Sparrow; it is often found associated with that species and with the Towhee, 

 the Junco, and the Tree Sparrow — birds of kindred tastes. 



Many writers stress the migrating fox sparrows' fondness for 

 swampy tangles or weedy stream borders. Witmer Stone (1908) 

 states it frequents the edges of swampy thickets in New Jersey, where 

 it is a common migrant with extreme dates of March 1 to April 10, 

 "Though common every year during their passage, they seem, some 

 years, to reach us all together, as it were, and for a short time the 

 thickets simply swarm with them. I noticed such a flight in March, 

 1906, near Tuckerton." 



Their preference for wet cover is, I think, more applicable to the 

 southern part of their range. When the northbound fox sparrows 

 reach Massachusetts, William Brewster (1906) notes that 



"Fox Sparrows, like Juncos, prefer upland to swampy places, although they 

 are sometimes seen along the banks of brooks in thickets of alders and other 

 bushes. Their favorite haunts in the Cambridge Region are dense second-growth 

 woods, where the trees are largely pines, hemlocks, or other evergreens; rocky 

 pastures plentifully sprinkled with Virginia junipers; and clusters or belts of 

 bushes bordering roadsides and neglected weed-grown fields. They often appear 

 in apple orchards and among ornamental evergreens in cultivated grounds. We 

 see them very regularly in our garden, although they visit it less frequently and 

 numerously now than they did twenty-five or thirty years ago, when it was by 

 no means uncommon to hear half a dozen males singing at once in the Norway 

 spruces close to the house. No one who has listened to such a chorus is likely 

 ever to forget the sudden outburst of wild, exquisitely modulated voices rising 

 above the rushing sound of the boisterous March wind. Strange to say, the 

 birds sing most freely and with the greatest spirit during stormy weather, especially 

 when snow is falling." 



They are not greatly inconvenienced by moderate snowfalls during 

 the northward flight. In their search for food they make the snow 

 fly as well as the leaves. Only when the snowfall is prolonged or 

 when freezing rain forms a crust do they suffer. Then they are forced 

 to leave the shelter of the thickets in search of food. Many such 

 instances are on record when fox sparrows lose their customary 

 timidity and are found about dooryards. 



Francis B. White (1937) writes that at Concord, N.H., "You may 

 expect to see these birds for nearly three weeks in the spring * * *. 

 We make more intimate acquaintance with them in large numbers if 



