1166 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part 2 



SPIZELLA PASSERINA (Bcchstein) 



Eastern and Canadian Chipping Sparrows* 



PLATE 63 



Contributed by William DeMott Stull 



Habits 



The specific name Alexander WUson gaA^e this little sparrow, 

 socialis, aptly describes the close relationship manj^ later authors have 

 noted between its habitations and those of man. None has expressed 

 it better than Forbush (1929), who wrote "The Chipping Sparrow is 

 the little brown-capped pensioner of the dooryard and lawn, that 

 comes about farmhouse doors to glean crumbs shaken from the table- 

 cloth by tlirifty housewives. It is the most domestic of all the 

 sparrows. It approaches the dv/ellings of man with quiet confidence 

 and frequently builds its nest and rears its young in the clustering 

 vines of porch or veranda under the noses of the human tenants." 



The early writers spoke of it as the most common bird in their areas. 

 Audubon (1841) wrote "Few birds are more common throughout the 

 United States than this gentle and harmless little bunting." But 

 soon after the turn of the century a sharp decline in numbers was noted 

 in formerly populous areas (R. F. Miller, 1933; H. F. Price, 1935; 

 L. Griscom, 1949). The explanations given usually include cowbird 

 predation or competition from English sparrows. Yet in 1954-58 

 the chipping sparrow was the most abundant nesting bu-d on the 

 campus of the Lake Itasca Forestry and Biological Station in Hubbard 

 County, Minn., in an area where there were many cowbirds and no 

 English sparrows. 



While we continue to think of this bird as preferring man's door- 

 yards, lawns, and orchards, we wonder where it existed under primeval 

 conditions. In Itasca State Park, Minn., it occurs in smaU numbers 

 in stands of jack pine, in virgin black spruce bogs, and in stands of 

 virgin red pine. In the more favored developed areas it lives in 

 abundance. Forbush (1929) says that, "Here and there in the wilder 

 parts of New England Chipping Sparrows may be found in forest 

 openings or along the shores of lakes and streams." On Lake 

 Mistassini, Quebec, Godfrey (1949a) found it confined to a narrow 

 clearing which was "densely popidated in summer by noisy Indians 

 and their dogs and enclosing the trading posts of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company and the free trader." The same writer (Godfrey, 1950) 

 found it a "common summer resident in aspen and coniferous forest 

 edges and tall shubbery on the margins of roads, streams and lakes" 



*The following subspecies are discussed in this section; Spizella passerina 

 passerina (Bechstein) and S. p. boreophila Oberholser. 



