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804. ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
Length, about six and twenty-five one-hundredths inches; wing, three and ten 
one-hundredths inches. 
Hab. — United States from Atlantic to the Pacific; or else one species to the high 
central plains, and another from this to the Pacific. 
This Sparrow is abundantly distributed throughout New 
England in the breeding season. It arrives about the first 
week in April, and commences building about the last of 
that month in Massachusetts; in Maine, about the first 
of June. The nest, like that of the preceding species, is 
built in open, dry pastures and fields, at the foot of a tuft 
of grass, and is composed of the same materials and con- 
structed in the same form as the others; and I would here 
remark, that, of our New-England sparrows, it is impossible 
to distinguish most species, either in manner and material 
of nest, and form and color of eggs, in the great variations 
which exist in them. The descriptions already given, and 
those which follow, are made from the average specimens, 
or in the forms in which they are most often met. The 
egos of the Grass Finch are usually about four in number : 
they are of a grayish, livid-white color, and marked irregu- 
larly with spots of obscure brown, over which are blotches 
of black. Dimensions of specimens from various localities 
vary from .88 by .60 to .76 by .58 inch. Two broods, and 
sometimes three, are reared in the season. 
The habits of this and the succeeding species so much 
resemble those of the preceding, that it is difficult to 
describe either so that they may be readily recognized. 
The present bird is more civilized in its habits, and usually 
resides much nearer the habitations of man than the others ; 
but in other respects it resembles them in all their charac- 
teristics. 
COTURNICULUS, Bonaparte. 
Coterniculus, BONAPARTE, Geog. List (1838). (Type Fringilla passerina, Wils.) 
Bill very large and stout; the under mandible broader, but lower than the upper, 
which is considerably convex at the basal portion of its upper outline; legs mod- 
erate, apparently not reaching to the end of the tail; the tarsus appreciably longer 
