SPARROWS 427 



very young birds. The food of the adults in summer is very 

 similar, but in fall, winter and spring they turn seed eaters and 

 indulge in various grass and weed seeds which they find in the 

 bushes and thickets. At these seasons they also appear under 

 the bushes and shrubbery of the city gardens. 



Genus MELOSPIZA Baird. 



581. Melospiza cinerea melodia (Wilson). Song Sparrow; 

 Ground Sparrow; Bush Sparrow. 



Plumage of adults : grayish line through center of the rufous brown 

 crown ; gray line over eye and rufous brown line from eye backward ; back 

 feathers streaked black and margined with grayish and rufous brown ; wings 

 blackish, with lighter edgings and the tertiaries and coverts buffy tipped ; 

 tail rufous brown with darker color on shafts of middle feathers ; sides of 

 throat black streaked ; breast centrally streaked with wedge-like marks of 

 black or brownish, forming more or less of a patch ; sides streaked blackish 

 and brownish ; otherwise whitish below. Immature plumage : very similar 

 to that of adults, averaging more buffy washings and less white below ; tail 

 indistinctly barred ; streakings below more blackish ; line over eye more 

 huffish. Wing 2.61 ; culmen 0.50 ; tarsus 0.85 ; tail 2.58. 



Geog. Dist. — Eastern North America, west to the Plains ; breeding from 

 northern Illinois and Virginia northward to the Fur Countries ; wintering 

 from Illinois and Massachusetts, rarely from Maine, to the Gulf States. 



County Records. — Androscoggin; abundant summer resident, (Johnson). 

 Aroostook; common summer resident, (Knight). Cumberland; common 

 summer resident, (Mead) ; one observed at Cape Elizabeth, January 17, 1904, 

 and one seen several times in winter of 1905, (Brownson, J. M. O. S. 1905, 

 p. 28). Franklin; common summer resident, (Swain). Hancock; summer 

 resident, common on the islands, (Knight). Kennebec; quite common sum- 

 mer resident, (Gardiner Branch) ; an individual seen near Gardiner January 

 13, 1896, (Larrabee, Me. Sp. 1896, p. 20). Knox ; summer resident, (Rackliff). 

 Oxford; breeds commonly, (Nash). Penobscot ; common summer resident, 

 have seen it in February, (Knight). Piscataquis ; common, breeds, (Homer). 

 Sagadahoc; common summer resident, (Spinney). Somerset ; common sum- 

 mer resident, (Morrell). Waldo; summer resident, (Spratt) ; common in 

 summer, occasional in winter, (Knight). Washington; very abundant sum- 

 mer resident, (Boardman). York; common summer resident, (Adams). 



Though occasionally seen in winter, the species in question 



is more properly a summer resident of general distribution and 



common in nearly every portion of the State. Near Bangor 



