CHIPPING SPARROW 
But it is well to note that none of these variations affects 
his unalterable rhythm. 
White-throat is a perfect little curiosity-box! I have 
never yet failed to call him from a considerable distance, 
by imitating his song. In more than one instance it has 
been possible by this means to draw a dozen or more 
birds about me, all of whom were devoured with curi- 
osity to find out why such a great hulking, wingless 
_ bird should be familiar with their own language! One 
could whistle all day to an Oriole, and it is doubtful 
whether he would pay the slightest attention. 
Chipping This common little Sparrow is esteemed 
Sparrow more for his social disposition than his 
Aten talent asa musician. As for his music, it 
éacialia scarcely deserves the name; it is too strid- 
L.5.35inches ulent and monotonous to deserve atten- 
April 20th tion. In appearance, too, the bird is 
very ordinary. Forehead black; crown chestnut red; 
back of the neck streaked with black; a conspicuous 
gray line runs over and back of the eye with a black line 
above and back of it; bill dark sepia; back striped with 
black, ruddy brown, and ochre; region above the tail 
gray; under parts ashen gray, the throat lighter; wing- 
bars very indistinct, the wings marked like tke back. 
Female similarly colored. Nest of grasses, fine twigs, 
and rootlets, lined with numerous long hairs, and situ- 
ated from five to six feet above the ground (sometimes 
nearly twenty) in a tree or bush, and quite often in 
an apple-tree. Egg blue-green, freckled with chestnut 
red and sepia. The range of this species is throughout 
eastern North America, and as far north as Great Slave 
Lake. It breeds throughout its range, and winters in 
the Gulf States and Mexico. Fully one third of its food 
consists of (injurious) insects, including many beetles 
and grasshoppers; the rest consists almost exclusively 
of seeds. 
Chippy’s song is pitched extremely high—somewhere 
in the octave just beyond highest C—so of musical tone 
it must be admitted he possesses very little or none at 
all. Undoubtedly most listeners would pronounce it a 
tox 
