THE CHIPPING SPARROW. 



73 



last named material is exclusively employed, and Dr. Wheaton mentions two 

 nests composed entirely of white hair. A horizontal branch of an apple tree 

 is a common situation, but nests are placed in evergreens and other shade 

 trees, or in hedge-rows and the like. They are often so loosely related to 

 their immediate surroundings as to give the impression of having been con- 

 structed elsewhere and then moved bodily to their present site. Some are 

 set as lightly as feathers upon the tips of evergreen branches, and a heavy 

 storm in season is sure to bring down a shower of Chippies' nests. 



Dr. Brewer in his monumental work 1 states emphatically that 

 in no instance has he known of the Chipping Sparrow's nest on the 

 ground. Yet Dr. Wheaton mentions 

 such an in- 

 stance, and in 

 the spring of 

 1903 I came 

 upon a nest 

 with one egg, 

 in the very 

 shadow of an 





deed, but thor- 



( mghly settled 

 upon t h e 

 ground under 

 the protection 



of a grass-tus- 

 sock. 



C h i p p i n g 

 Sparrows are 

 devoted par- 

 ents, and raise 

 at least twi 

 broods each season. Their fidelity to their young and their confidence in man 

 make them frequent subjects of the photographer's skill, and their por- 

 traits are among the most pleasing in collections. 



The Cowbird finds these gentle creatures among her easiest victims. 

 After the dusky changeling has stifled or ejected the rightful heirs, he usurps 

 the full attention of his foster parents, and one of the saddest sights to see 

 in the bird-world is that of a mother Chippy, slender and care-wi irn, standing on 

 tiptoes to cram food into the mouth of some squawking, pot-bellied, cuckold 

 squab of twice her size. 



1 North American Birds. Baird. Brewer ,V Ridgway; Land Birds. Vol. II., p. 10. 



