EASTERN FIELD SPARROW 1229 



Martin, Zini, and Nelson (1951) state of the field sparrow's animal 

 food: "Insects eaten consist chiefly of beetles, grasslioppers, and 

 caterpillars. Various other invertebrates, including ants and other 

 Hymenoptera, leafhoppers, true bugs, and spiders are also consumed." 

 Plant food from 137 specimens from the northeast consisted mainly of 

 bristlegrass, crabgrass, broomsedge, panicgrass, some oats, and lesser 

 amoimts of dropseed grass, sheep sorrel, pigweed, ragweed, wood sorrel, 

 timothy, and goosefoot. From 38 stomachs from the prairie states, 

 the main plants eaten were bristlegrass, panicgrass, dropseedgrass, 

 and crabgrass, with lesser amounts of vervain, goosefoot, wheat, 

 redtop, and gromwell. 



Crooks (MS.) noted that the field sparrows began feeding before it 

 was completely fight in the morning; they fed a great deal up to about 

 9 a.m., intermittently for brief periods dm-ing the day, and then 

 liea\'ily again from 6 to 6 :30 in the evening. He also noted that the 

 female fed for longer periods, up to 14 minutes at a time, while the 

 male's feeding periods averaged around 4 minutes. 



My observations confu-m those of Malcolm Crooks. Pairs often 

 fed for many hours during the early morning before they nested, and 

 seemed to be picking up grass and other seeds. Dming nesting they 

 continued to feed on seeds, but began eating many more insects, 

 including grasshoppers and large larvae, and the incubating female 

 devoured any ants that ventiu-ed into the nest. The nestlings, as 

 stated above, are fed entirely on insect food. Later in the smnmer as 

 the flocks began to form they again fed largely on grass seeds. 



Voice. — Much has been Amtten of the song of the field sparrow, 

 which Cornefius Weygandt (1930) epitomized most aptly as "a fittle 

 song, a trembfing and lonely melody, minor, but never im cheerful." 

 To me the song sounds fike "seeea-seeea-seeea-seeea-wee-wee-wee- 

 wee." The male usually begins to sing just as day begins to break, 

 usually from a prominent perch on his territory, and, if he is not 

 mated, he continues on and off dm-ing the entire day, though noteably 

 less in the afternoon. After he is paired he sings fittle after daybreak 

 until nestings starts, when he sings more often, and always most 

 during the early morning, usuaUy at the rate of about three or four 

 times per minute. 



F. H. AUen, in notes to Mr. Bent, describes the commonest song of 

 the field sparrow as "several long, slow notes with falling inflection 

 foUowed by a rapid trill on a higlier pitch." A bird he heard at West 

 Roxbury, Mass., July 17, 1916 "held himseK erect, threw back his 

 head, and kept his bill open while singing, the mandibles moving only 

 sfightly at the begimiing, and gradually closing with the final trill." 



Aretas A. Saunders (1922b) WTites: "The Field Sparrow song is of 

 short diu-ation. The average length of the song, based on the one 



