FINCHES 



75 



DICKCISSEL 



Spiza americana {(.iiiu-lin) 



A, O, L', .\umbcr 004 



Other Names. — Black-throated Bunting; Little 

 Meadowlark. 



General Description. — Length. 6.>4 inches. Upper 

 parts, gray, brown, and black, streaked ; under parts, 

 white and yellow. Bill, stout, conical, and compressed; 

 wings. long and pointed ; tail, about -'4 length of wing, 

 forked. 



Color. — .-\dult AL-\le; Crown, hindneck. sides of 

 neck, and ear region, plain gray, the forehead and 

 crown usually olive-greenish ; over eyes a narrow stripe 

 of pale yellow, sometimes white toward the back ; back 

 and shoulders, light brownish-gray or grayish-brown, 

 streaked with black, the rump similar but paler and 

 grayer and witliout streaks ; middle wing-coverts, 

 brownish-gray with dusky shaft-streaks ; lesser and 

 middle wing-coverts cinnamon-rufous; greater coverts 

 and wing feathers, dusky centrally broadly edged with 

 pale wood-brownish, the former sometimes tinged with 

 cinnamon-rufous; secondaries, primaries, and tail 

 feathers, grayish-dusky edged with pale buffy-grayish 

 (edging nearly white on outermost primaries and tail 

 feathers) ; cheek region, yellow toward the front, white 

 toward the back; chin (and usually upper throat), 

 white; breast (sometimes part of abdomen also) yellow, 

 this fading into white on lower abdomen, under tail- 

 coverts, etc. ; the sides and flanks, pale brownish-gray ; 

 a black patch, of e.xceedingly variable shape and ex- 

 tent, on lower throat, sometimes continued backward 

 along the middle line of breast to upper part of ab- 

 domen or forward (but not including) the chm ; iris. 



brown. -AnuLT Fem.-\le: Much like the adult male, 

 but coloration much duller ; upper parts, more brown, 

 with the crown and rinnp usually streaked with dusky: 

 stripes over the eye and on the cheeks with less of 

 yellow, sometimes with none ; under parts with yellow 

 of breast more restricted; whole throat white, mar- 

 gined on the sides by a streak of dusky; no black spot 

 on lower throat, or else this much smaller than in male; 

 flanks streaked with dusky. 



Nest and Eggs. — Nest: Placed on ground sheltered 

 by a tuft of grass, or in trees or bushes sometimes 

 Iff teen feet up, but the typical site is on the ground, in 

 meadovifs or fields; constructed principally of dried 

 grass, with some leaves, weed stems, rootlets and 

 shreds of corn husks, lined with fine grass or horse- 

 hair. Eggs: 4 or 5, plain pale blue. 



Distribution. — United States east of Rocky Moun- 

 tains, and southward in winter through New Mexico, 

 .\rizona, Mexico (both coasts), and Central America 

 to C^olombia and Trinidad; occasional during migration 

 in Jamaica and on Swan Island (Caribbean Sea) ; 

 breeding from South Carolina (formerly), Alabama, 

 Mississippi, and Te.xas north to North Dakota, Minne- 

 sota, Wisconsin, Michigan (south of lat. 43°), southern 

 Ontario, etc., formerly to eastern Massachusetts. Now 

 chiefly restricted during the breeding season to the 

 region between the Allegheny Mountains and eastern 

 base of the Rocky Mountains, having, for unknown 

 reasons, become practically extinct since about 1870 

 throughout the whole of the .-Atlantic coast plain. 



The Dickcissel is so named from the simple 

 song with which he makes cheery the fence-rows 

 and bushy corners of the prairies. It is a simple 

 song, almost too furry and certainly too simple 

 to be counted as good bird music. But the con- 

 stant repetition comes to influence the listener 

 with pleasure because there is a suninierv, 

 homely sweetness about the iiersistency of the 

 notes that matches the season. 



The bird has been called the Black-throated 

 Bunting and also the Little Meadowlark. His 

 habits are those of the bush-haunting Sparrows, 

 from whom he is never far away except when 

 in the migratory winter flocks on the Texas 

 plains. There the flocks are ever in motion mov- 

 ing on by flight of the rear ranks over to the 

 front in a continuotis forward procession. But 

 up in the more northern areas he is a shy bird. 

 Professor Walter B. Barrows says that it " is 

 one of our most interesting birds, not alone on 



account of its beattty, but because it varies 

 greatly in numbers in different localities, and in 

 the same locality in different years." This great 

 variation in frequency is most noticeable along 

 the outer edges of its area. In 1871 the bird was 

 common at Colorado city, but it has not been 

 noted as cominon in the State of Colorado since 

 that time. About Civil War times Dickcissels 

 were not rare in western New York and west- 

 ern Pennsylvania, areas in which they are now 

 counted as only accidental visitors. Along the 

 north side of the Dickcissel area, the birds are 

 common one year, rare the next, absent the next 

 and then back again to common. Different dis- 

 tricts over the north side of the Dickcissel range 

 are going throttgh different experiences at the 

 same time. Southern Michigan may be losing 

 Dickcissels over a period of five years while 

 eastern Wisconsin is gaining, the upper Missis- 

 sippi valley retaining its numbers and south- 



