332 NOTES ON THE 



It is well known to bring out two broods, and sometimes 

 three in the same season. 



The nest is composed mostly of dried grasses and fre- 

 quently lined with horse hair. It is found usually in spring 

 directly on the ground under some kind of shelter, perhaps a 

 clod of earth, a bunch of grass, a bush or a root, yet may be 

 in some exceptional place like a stump, in a hedge or even in 

 a castaway old teakettle. One is said to have been found in 

 the crown of an old "plug" hat hanging in a hazle brush. 

 The general coloration of the eggs, I should say, is bluish- 

 white, but they are almost unparalleled in their variability, and 

 different eyes seem to see the same eggs "in a different light." 

 The markings are brown touched with lilac. Minnesota is 

 probably about the western border of their fullest representa- 

 tion. They are relatively abundant here and yet twenty-eight 

 years ago I did not see more than one-tenth of the present 

 numbers. Their food-habits make them a necessity to agri- 

 culture, so they have come with or close upon the heels of the 

 farmer and gardener. 



Owing to their disregard of a little snow and considerable 

 frost, we find them almost simultaneously appearing in all the 

 principal and more cultivated sections of the State. I have 

 special reports of its appearance from the line adjoining Iowa 

 to Detroit lake, on the Northern Pacific. It lingers quite late 

 in autumn, and even into early winter in the southwest portions 

 of the State, in the dense thickets of the heavily timbered 

 localities. 



Mr. Washburn found Song Sparrows at Dead lake at the 

 head of Dead river, northwest of Otter Tail lake, in Otter 

 Tail county, as late as October 13th, and expresses a very 

 decided opinion, based upon local inquiries and observations, 

 that this species remains much later. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



General tint of upper parts rufous-brown, streaked with 

 dark brown and ashy-gray; crown rufous, with a superciliary 

 and median stripe of dull gray, the former lighter; anteriorly 

 nearly white, with a faint shade of yellow; each feather of the 

 crown with a narrow streak of dark brown; interscapulars 

 dark brown in the center, then rufous, then grayish on the 

 margin; rump grayer than upper tail coverts, and both with 

 obsolete dark streaks; a whitish maxillary stripe, bordered 

 above and below by one of dark rufous-brown, with a similiar 

 one from behind the eye; under parts white; breast, sides of 

 body and throat streaked with dark rufous, with a still darker 



