302 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



This bird seems to be rather irregularly distributed 

 throughout New England in the summer season. In the 

 eastern part of Massachusetts, it is quite common; in 

 the western part, " chiefly a spring and summer visitant," 

 but "not common." Mr. Allen has never found it breed- 

 ing in the neighborhood of Springfield ; but, in the neighbor- 

 hood of the seacoast in the same State, it is abundant in 

 the breeding season. On the contrary, in Maine, it is not 

 very common near the seacoast ; but in the interior, even 

 as far as the western borders, it is one of the most plentiful 

 of Sparrows. It arrives in Massachusetts as early as the 

 first week in April ; in Maine, seldom before the middle of 

 that month. About the first week in May in Massachusetts, 

 and later as we advance north, the birds commence build- 

 ing. The nest is placed on the ground, usually under a 

 tussock of grass : it is constructed of fine grasses and 

 roots, which are bent and twined together rather neatly; 

 and the whole is lined with hairlike roots and fine grass. 

 The eggs are usually four in number, grayish-white in color, 

 and covered irregularly with spots of umber-brown and lilac. 

 Their form varies from long and slender to quite short 

 and thick : their dimensions vary from .76 by .60 to .72 by 

 .58 inch. Two broods are often reared in the season. This 

 species rather prefers pastures and fields at a distance from 

 houses for a home to their more immediate neighborhood. 



On the seaboard, this species is most often found on or 

 near the sandy beaches, where it is observed busily glean- 

 ing, in the seaweed and little bunches of beach-grass, the 

 insects and mollusks that are found there. In the interior, 

 it prefers the dry, sandy fields and pastures, where, running 

 about with great rapidity, its white outer tail feathers spread, 

 it is always industrious in its search for coleopterous insects 

 and seeds. 



The female, when the nest is approached, leaves it, and 

 runs limping off, her wings extended, uttering the chatter- 

 ing cry peculiar to the Sparrows. 



