SPARROWS 401 



practically alike, I think the male aids the female in building 

 the nest and incubating the eggs, and both certainly help to 

 feed the young. A typical nest was found on the ground in 

 a deserted, weedy garden patch on a slight hillside at Bangor, 

 June 24, 1900, when it contained slightly incubated eggs 

 measuring 0.77 x 0.63, 0.79 x 0.61, 0.79 x 0.62, 0.79 x 0.61. 

 The nest was composed of dried grass and rootlets, lined with 

 finer grasses and rootlets and measured in external depth two 

 inches and internally one and a half inches. The external 

 diameter was seven and the internal diameter two and a half 

 inches. The nest was situated in a small tussock of yarrow. 

 Three to five, usually four eggs are laid and these vary from 

 white to pinkish or grayish white in color, dotted, specked, 

 lined and blotched with reddish brown, rusty brown and umber, 

 the markings rather uniformly scattered over the surface or 

 rarely about the larger end. 



Nest building requires from seven to fourteen days, accord- 

 ing to the weather and other conditions. An egg is laid each 

 day and incubation requires from eleven to thirteen days, 

 depending on the weather, closeness with which the birds sit 

 and other circumstances. The first set is laid in late May or 

 June and a second litter is reared in late July or August. The 

 young leave the nest in about fifteen days, sometimes a day or 

 so sooner or later. The food is rather variable, the young 

 being fed largely on beetles, grubs, small green caterpillars and 

 similar insects, while the parents as well as the young when 

 fledged eat seeds of various weeds and grasses. I should 

 estimate their diet in summer as being fully sixty per-cent 

 insects, while in the fall it is about the same amount of vege- 

 table material. They are entirely beneficial. 



Genus PASSERCULUS Bonaparte. 



541. Passercukis princeps Maynard. Ipswich Sparrow; 

 Gray Bird; Sable Island Sparrow; Maynard 's Sparrow, 



