198 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 
(b). The nest is built on the ground, in the various summer- 
haunts of this bird. It is composed chiefly of dry grasses, 
and in Eastern Massachusetts is finished in the second week of 
May. Four or five eggs are then laid, averaging *75 X *55 of 
an inch, exhibiting great variation, and often approaching 
those of other sparrows. Some are dull white, faintly and 
minutely marked, most thickly at the crown. Dr. Brewer 
says: ‘‘In some the ground-color, which is of a greenish-white, 
is plainly visible, being only partially covered with blotches 
of brown, shaded with red and purple. These blotches are 
more numerous about the larger end, becoming confluent and 
forming a corona. In others the ground-color is entirely con- 
cealed by confluent ferruginous fine dots, over which are darker 
markings of brown and purple and a still darker ring of the 
same about the larger end.” 
(c). The Savannah Sparrows show a marked preference for 
the sea-coast, and the islands near it, and are to be found much 
farther to the northward along the coast-line than in the inte- 
rior, where, however, they frequently occur to the southward of 
the mountain-chains in northern New England. To the inland, 
rather than along the shore, they are locally distributed, being 
the most colonial of all our sparrows. Though collective, they 
do not cluster as the swallows do, but many often pass the 
summer in one place, and several pairs frequent the same field, 
or the same strip of shore. ’ They reach Eastern Massachu- 
setts, where they are particularly ‘‘abundant in the salt-water 
marshes and their neighborhood,” in the second or third week 
of April, but many soon pass to the northward. 
They have a settlement, if I may so call it, ata place in the 
White Mountains, where I made the following observations. 
They there inhabited the fields and pasture-lands. In the 
earlier part of July they were seen in small flocks, or families, 
to visit gardens in the search of food; and, even so late as the 
twenty-third of that month, a nest was found containing freshly 
laid eggs. As well-crown young were also then observed, they 
doubtless reared two broods; and certainly until the latter 
part of August they remained in the fields where they had 
—_— 
hang ae 
