SPARROWS 407 



13, 1894, was hollowed out in a tussock of grass in intervale 

 land near the Penobscot River. This nest was larger and more 

 substantial, composed of grass and sedge leaves, mixed with 

 moss and lined with finer grass. This measured externally in 

 height two inches by one-half an inch internally. Its diameter 

 outside was four and inside two and a quarter inches. The 

 five eggs this contained were rather evenly spotted and speckled 

 all over with spots and dots of light brown and lilac, the mark- 

 ings tending to cover up the grayish white ground color. 

 Along the coast nests are often placed under flat pieces of 

 driftwood on the marshes. 



Eggs of the first brood are laid in late May to mid June; 

 these hatch in twelve days and the young leave in about four- 

 teen days more. From early July to the middle of the month 

 another brood is reared. The food consists of grasshoppers, 

 crickets, beetles, grubs, caterpillars, worms and in fact the 

 general run of small forms of life found in the fields and 

 meadows in summer, at which season fully eighty per cent of 

 the food is of animal nature, the balance being about fifteen 

 per cent seeds, chiefly grass and weed seeds, and five per cent 

 fine sand. In fall fully sixty per cent of the food is grass and 

 weed seeds, while only thirty per cent is insects, the balance 

 being sand as before. 



Genus COTURNICULUS Bonaparte. 



546. Coturniculus savannarum passerinus (Wils.). Grass- 

 hopper Sparrow. Yellow-winged Sparrow. 



Plumage of adults : back black, apically spotted on feathers with chest- 

 nut, edged with pearl gray ; crown blackish with huffish line through center ; 

 nape rufous brown edged with grayish ; edgings of tertiaries and wing cov- 

 erts rich buff; bend of wing lemon yellow; wings and tail dark grayish 

 brown ; tail feathers pointed, about equal length and end half of outer fea- 

 ther whitish ; belly whitish and breast and sides buffy ; a yellow superciliary 

 spot. Plumage of immature : above mottled and striped with olive brown, 

 grayish and buffy ; wings and tail olive brown ; wing coverts and tertiaries 

 white-tipped ; bend of wing only faintly yellow or entirely white ; yellow 



