434 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



diameter two inches. The eggs measured 0.78 x 0.55, 0.78 x 

 0.55, 0.80 X 0.56, 0.78 x 0.55 and several other sets I have 

 measured did not vary greatly. 



The eggs are pale bluish green to greenish or grayish white, 

 coarsely blotched and clouded with rufous brown and pale 

 brownish. As a general thing the spots are more confluent 

 and clouded and the markings coarser than in eggs of the Song 

 Sparrow, and though resembling them in a general way can 

 be readily distinguished, especially when compared by sets. 



Nest building begins about May fifteenth, and in a week to 

 ten days the female has finished her task, in which there is no 

 evidence to show that the male aids her. An egg is laid each 

 day until the set of four or five is completed, and incubation 

 requires about thirteen days, varying from twelve to fifteen 

 in some instances. The young are in the nest over twelve 

 days, but under fifteen, which is the most definite I can at 

 present give the time. In early July another brood is reared. 



The food consists of beetles, worms, grubs, caterpillars, moths, 

 flies and small snails during the summer with little vegetable 

 matter, while in the fall and spring considerable grass seed, 

 especially Agrostis and Calamagrostis, and some seed of the 

 smaller Carices as well as other similar vegetable matter is 

 eaten. 



Genus PASSERELLA Swainson. 



585. Passerella iliaca (Merr.). Fox Sparrow; Fox-colored 

 Sparrow. 



Plumage : above olive brown, margined or streaked with umber brown ; 

 wings and tail clove brown, but as viewed from above appearing bright 

 rufous owing to rufous edging of primaries, rufous portions of webs of tail 

 feathers and rufous tail coverts ; under parts whitish or white, very heavily 

 spotted and streaked with bright rufous brown and darkish except on middle 

 of the belly. Wing 3.45 ; culmen 0.48 ; tail 2.95. 



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

 Newfoundland and Manitoba to Alaska ; wintering from Massachusetts to 

 the Gulf States. 



