DELAWARE VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 31 



The love making of these birds is so simple that it is hardly 

 describable. I have watched them many times expecting to 

 see some of the merry chasing that is so universal among the 

 finches. They seem to take such little interest that one is al- 

 most disposed to think they are mated when they arrive in this 

 locality. I do not think they are, however, as I have noticed 

 a number of times three birds together, presumably two males 

 and one female acting in a manner which seemed to show that 

 no choice had been made. 



The nest is placed directly on the ground and is rather care- 

 fully made of fine grass; sometimes I understand lined with 

 hair, although I have never seen hair in any that I have found. 

 The eggs are four or five in number, white spotted with reddish- 

 brown. I am obliged to give this information from other 

 writers as I have never found a nest containing eggs. I have 

 never tried flushing the birds with a rope, which I believe is 

 the up-to-date method of locating nests of the ground-building 

 birds. 



T am somewhat inclined to difJer with most writers as to the 

 abundance of this bird, for while it is very widely distributed I 

 think it is somewhat localized, and very seldom found in large 

 quantities. Of course my field of investigation is very small, 

 but in the vicinitj- of Philadelphia and New York I have taken 

 a great many trips, and while I have found them in small 

 quantities almost everywhere, I have never found them any- 

 where in large numbers. 



The diversity of opinion as to the song of this bird among our 

 earlier ornithologists is illustrated in a paragraph in the "His- 

 tory of North American Birds." Dr. Brewer states that he 

 never heard it, that Wilson describes it as a short, interrupted 

 chirp, Nuttall as an agreeable song something like a purple 

 finch, Audubon as an unmusical ditty, and Ridgway as bearing 

 a close resemblance to the note of a grasshopper. 



If any of the members are posted sufficiently to give us some 

 well defined rule as to this bird's peculiar distribution, it would 

 add very materially to our knowledge of its life history. 



