FINCHES 



29 



are iu'.t,'lfCU'(l in winter and tlie S|)arro\vs call 

 but rarely, the people of tlie s(]uth know the 

 bird even less than do the people of the north. 

 Because of its small mniiliers and irregular 

 local distribution Henslow's Sparrow is of little 

 econoniic importance. Beetles, cutworms, grass- 

 hoppers, soldier inigs, assassin bugs, spiders, 

 blackberries, grass, and plant seeds have been 

 found in the stomachs exaniineil by the mem- 

 bers of the United States Biological Survey. 



There is a ])aler race of Henslow's S|)arrows 

 in South Dakota that is called the \\'cstern Hens- 

 low's .Sparrow { I'asscrlicrbuliis hciislozci ocri- 

 ili-ii talis). 



< )n the |)rairie marshes of the Mississippi 

 valley and of the central Canadian provinces, 

 southeastward in winter, is another very similar 

 species, known as Leconte's Sparrow { Passcr- 

 hcrhiiliis Iccontci). (See Color Plate 81.) 



L. Nelson Nichols. 



SHARP-TAILED SPARROW 



Passerherbulus caudacutus ( Ginclin] 



A. O. U. Numl.LT S49 S<;e Color I'latc .Si 



General Description. — Length, 5'j inches. Upper 

 parts, olive-l)r<nvn : under parts, whitish ; streaked ahove 

 and below. tJill, stout; wing, short; tail, rounded, 

 the feathers sharp-pointed. 



Color. — Adults : Broad, sharply delined, and con- 

 spicuous stripe over eye and broad cheek stripe, deep 

 bufT, the latter curving upward behind the ears, but 

 separated from the stripe on the eye by a narrow black 

 or dark brown stripe back of the eye ; ear region, 

 grayish ; crown, clear bister brown streaked with black, 

 divided by a broad but not sharply defined center 

 stripe of grayish; prevailing color of upper parts, 

 olivaceous, grayer on sides of hindneck and rump, the 

 shoulders and between decidedly darker olive-brown, 

 sharply edged with pale grayish or bufi'y whitish, pro- 

 ducing distinct streaks which are margined internally 

 by a narrower blackish streak; crf</r of icing, pair 



yclluic: under parts, mostly white, but the chest, sides, 

 and flanks tinged witli butf, sharply and usually con- 

 spicuously streaked with dusky. YouNc; : Crown, 

 blackish divided by a narrow center stri(<e, or series of 

 streaks, of dull bulify; general color of upper parts, 

 light bufi'y brownish, the shoulders and between broadly 

 edged with buflFy, (Producing conspicuous streaks; 

 under parts, huffy, deepest on chest and sides, where 

 streaked, narrowly, with dusky ; the abdomen, some- 

 times nearly white. 



Nest and Eggs. — Nest : Always in salt meadow 

 grass, sometimes concealed like the Seaside Sparrow's 

 under a bit of drift sedge; constructed of the same 

 materials as that bird's. Eggs : 4 or 5, pale brownish 

 or greenish white, profusely specked with chestnut. 



Distribution. — Atlantic coast of United States; 

 breeding from Massachusetts southward. 



The Shar])-tailed Sparrow is a bird of the salt- 

 water marshes along the coast of New England 

 and New York. It has a peculiar habit of perch- 

 ing on a perpendicular reed stalk, where it 

 manages, by spreading its feet wide apart, to 

 assume a ])artly upright position. On the ground 

 it runs about with its head lowered, among the 

 tussocks, like a mouse, and it is apt to resort to 

 this method of escaping observation, rather than 

 to flight. A distinguishing peculiaritv is the 

 form of its tail, which is rather long, and tapers 

 to a point, instead of being s(|uare at the end as 

 is that of the .Savannah .Sparrow; hence, of 

 course, its name. A distinctive plumage marking 

 is the bufTy line over the eye and on the sides 

 of the throat. Its song, like that of the Seaside 

 -Sparrow, is short and unmusical. 



The food habits of the Sharp-tailed Sparrow 

 have inany striking peculiarities. The bird shows 



a gretiter liking than most species for bugs, and 

 about half of those eaten are leaf-hoppers. 

 1 hese are, it is trtie, wonderfully abundant in 

 the moist, grassy j^laces where this Sparrow 

 lives, but they are not often eaten by other birds 

 that inhabit the same kinds of places. Of the 

 true bugs — that is, those belonging to the heter- 

 opterous division — both the smaller plant-feeding 

 ;md predacious species are eaten. Perhaps the 

 most curious feature of the bird's food habits is 

 the liking shown for flies. These insects, mainly 

 midges and their larvpe, certain allied insects, and 

 the smaller adult horseflies, constitute 3 per cent, 

 of the food, probably a larger proportion of flies 

 than characterizes the food of any other birds 

 except Flycatchers and those shore-inhabiting 

 species in the Far North which feed so exten- 

 sively on midges. 



There is a difference in the food of the -Sharp- 



