1218 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 paet 2 



I had the pleasure of studying this bird for 11 years on an old 

 uncultivated farm near our home in Battle Creek, Mich. Much of 

 the follo\ving account is dra^vn from my published reports (1939b, c, 

 1945) of those studies. I have also drawn extensively from the un- 

 published master's thesis of Malcolm P. Crooks, who studied the 

 species on its breeding grounds near Ames, Iowa. 



Lumbering in northern Michigan in the nineteenth century, fol- 

 lowed by fires, produced thousands of favorable acres for this 

 species which, together with the towhee, clay-colored sparrow, and 

 indigo bunting, followed the lumbering operations north to the Straits 

 of Mackinac. Much of this land has now grown back to forest, but 

 many brushy spots still remain where field sparrows summer. When 

 the young planted pines were small, the field sparrows nested in them; 

 as they became taller the chipping sparrows replaced the field sparrows 

 in them. 



My study area, near the northern edge of the species' range in 

 Michigan, consisted of about 100 acres of which (1939b) "about six- 

 teen were woodland and marsh and thirty acres covered merely with 

 grass, so that fifty-four acres, uncultivated and grown up to shrubs 

 proved the most suitable to the species. * * * Through the tall 

 grasses of these regions were to be found patches of blackberry (Rubus) , 

 staghorn sumac {Rhus typhina), dwarf sumac (Rhus copallina), New 

 Jersey tea (Ceanothus) and bush clover (Lespedeza). Small trees, 

 oak (Quercus), hickory (Carya) and hawthorn {Crataegus) were scat- 

 tered along the side hills and valleys. On this favorable 69 acres, 

 23 pairs of birds were known to nest [in 1938], a ratio of one pair to 

 each three acres." 



Crooks (MS.) writes that his "principal area studied is 31 acres of 

 abandoned pasture land at Ames, Iowa. It is virgin prairie soil and 

 has been used as pasture for many years, including the summer pre- 

 vious to the study. The terrain is very roUing and includes three 

 separate hills. An oak woods borders half of the southern part of the 

 area with a heavily grazed pasture on the remaining part. * * * 



The grassy cover of the area itself is mainly Kentucky bluegrass, Poa pratensis, 

 in the valleys and on the hillsides, and needlegrass, Stipa spartea, on the hilltops. 

 Some wild barley, Hordeum jubatum, was found In the valleys while the following 

 plants grew mainly on the hillsides: prairie larkspur, Delphinium carolinianum, 

 daisy fleabane, Erigeron ramosus, many-flowered aster, Aster multiflora, honey 

 vervain, Verbena striata, harsh-leaved goldenrod, Solidago patula, wild indigo, 

 Baptisia leucantha, evening primrose, Onagra biennis, bindweed, Polygonum 

 convolvulus, and bull thistle, Cirsium lanceolatum. 



The south central to southeastern part of the area is level and is thickly grown 

 with crabapple, Pyrus ioensis, and wild hawthorn, Crataegus mollis. Most of 

 the trees in this area are from 2 to 20 feet tall, much larger than the same species 

 of trees in other sections of the area. Each of the eight small valleys has numerous 

 hawthorns with a few crabapples interspersed. Often these trees grow in clumps, 



