

OF NEW ENGLAND. 



201 



not divided. Below, white (often buff-tinged) ; breast and 

 sides streaked with brown or black. Wings marked with bay. 

 Eye-ring white. 



(6). The nest is invariably placed on the ground, generally 

 in a pasture or field. It is lined with fine roots, dried grasses, 

 or horse-hairs. In Massachusetts two sets of eggs are laid, 

 one in the last week of May or earlier, and the other a month 

 or more later,, each containing four or five. These average -80 

 X '60 of an inch, but exhibit several variations in coloration. 

 One specimen before me is white, irregularly spotted and 

 blotched with a rather light reddish-brown and extremely faint 

 lilac, and measures -87 X '65 of an inch. Another is dull livid 

 white, with fine but almost invisible markings scattered over 

 the egg, and a few large umber-brown spots, some of which 

 are surmounted with black. These forms are almost two ex- 

 tremes. A third has scrawls and vermiculations on it, and 

 there are still others entirely distinct in character. 



(c). The Bay-winged Buntings, with the exception of the 

 Song Sparrows and "Chippers," and perhaps the Goldfinches, 

 are the most abundant members of their family to be found in 

 New England, during summer. Though they sometimes reach 

 Eastern Massachusetts in March, they more commonly appear 

 in the second or third week of April, and become plenty before 

 May. Usually a few only can be found here in November, the 

 majority returning to the South in the preceding month. A 

 very few may possibly spend the winter in this State, but I 

 have never known such to be the case. In early spring, they 

 are to be found in fields, pastures, vegetable-gardens, and 

 ploughed lands, often in association with other species, or 

 gathered by themselves. They are not so persistent in remain- 

 ing on or near the ground as the Savannah Sparrows (being 

 rather less nimble), are not so much confined as those birds 

 are to certain localities, and are not, I think, usually so com- 

 mon near the sea- shore as in the interior. They have, how- 

 ever, a much more limited distribution, being found in summer 

 neither so far to the northward or southward. 



The so-called Grass Finches, though they spend much of their 



