EASTERN AND CANADIAN CHIPPING SPARROWS 1167 



throughout the Flotten Lake Region of Saskatchewan, and Rand 

 (1946) found it fah-Ij" common along Canol Road in the dwarf-birch 

 and spurce flats bordering a river as well as in muskeg t^^pe forest and 

 in open mixed forest. In western Montana Saunders (1914a) records 

 it as a common summer resident in the cottonwood groves in the 

 prairies. 



Burleigh (1958) suggests that in Georgia the open pine woods were 

 probably its originid habitat, for it is still plentiful in this type of 

 woodland that once covered much of the state and is somewhat simihir 

 to the aforementioned stands of jack pine and mature red pine in 

 Itasca Park, Minn. 



The evidence indicates that, from one end of its range to the other, 

 the chipping sparrovv^ probably originally inhabited open woodlands 

 or the borders of forest openings produced by rivers and lakes. When 

 man appeared on the scene and began to make clearings for his villages, 

 he created additional open areas which the birds qtiicldy occupied. 

 The axes of the European settlers made a hundred clearings where 

 the aborigines had one, and undoubtedly the chipping sparrow 

 population of today is many times that in pre-Columbian North 

 America. 



The chipping sparrow^ population of west-central Canada was 

 distinguished by H. C. Oberholser (1955) as Sjnzella passerina boreo- 

 phila with the following diagnosis: "Similar to Spizella passerina 

 passerina, but larger, and ground color of upper surface, except 

 pHeum, paler, more grayish, near drab. Like Spizella passerina 

 arizonae, but darker above, particularl}' the pileum; sides of head and 

 the hind neck more clearly gray (less brownish) and somewhat darker; 

 postocular streak wider." The race is at best a very fine split; it 

 cannot be identified except in the hand, and wide areas of intergrada- 

 tion exist between it and the other two North American forms. In 

 habits and behavior the Canadian birds do not differ materially, if at 

 all, from the eastern and western chipping sparrows. 



Spring.— The wintering population begins to migrate from the 

 southern coastal plain in late winter, and the last stragglers have 

 usually left the coastal regions of Georgia by the middle of April. 

 Farther inland in the uplands of the middle coastal plain, they are 

 usually gone by May 1. In the south the males are singing on their 

 territories by late March. Trautman (1940) has the following to say 

 of their arrival in central Ohio: 



It was sometime between March 17 and April 2, usuallj' the last week of March, 

 that the first Eastern Chipping Sparrows arrived. A few days after April 1 a 

 small wave appeared, and by April 10 the species had become numerous. The 

 peak of migi-ation began about April 12 and continued until April 30. Usually, 

 all transients had disappeared by May 5. During the largest flights 5 to 35 

 could be daily encountered. The earlier arrivals were in groups of 3 to 6 indi- 

 646-737— 68— pt. 2 37 



