OF NEW ENGLAND. 215 



involuntarily learned to associate them with a winter's after- 

 noon drawing to its close, a clear sunset, with perhaps dark 

 clouds above, and a rising north-west wind, which sweeps 

 across the fields, to warn us of to-morrow's cold. The almost 

 mournful chip of these birds, as they fly to their nightly rest, 

 has always seemed to me a fitting accompaniment for such a 

 scene. 



(C) PUSILLUS. Field Sparrow. 



(A common summer-resident in Massachusetts, frequenting 

 pasture-lands and the "scrub.") 



(a). 5 inches long. (" Bill pale reddish.") Crown, rufous- 

 red. Sides of the head vaguely marked. Interscapulars, bright 

 ba} T , black-streaked, with pale edging (or rarely none). Rump, 

 median, unmarked. Tail, dusk} r -black ; feathers pale-edged. 

 Wings (as in borealis, and) with two inconspicuous white wing- 

 bars. Beneath, white ; breast and sides distinctly washed with 

 brown. (Line dividing the crown, and nuchal patch, both 

 faintly ashy, or wanting.) 



(b). The nest is placed on the ground or in a low bush, in 

 my own neighborhood generally the latter, and in a field, a 

 pasture, or the scrub-land. When placed in a bush, it is us- 

 ually composed of fine straws, and sometimes fine twigs also, 

 and is occasionally lined with horse-hairs, which is nearly 

 always the case when it is on the ground. Each set of eggs, 

 two sets being often laid in a season, of which the first appears 

 here in the last week of May, consists of four or five eggs, 

 which average about '70X'50 of an inch, and are white (gray- 

 tinged), with scattered spots of tight, almost flesh-colored, red- 

 dish-brown, which are rarely so confluent as nearly to conceal 

 the ground-color. 



(c). The Field Sparrows, though quite common here in sum- 

 mer, are not so generally well known as they deserve to be. 

 Though found in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, yet 

 Massachusetts is the most northern of the New England States 

 in which they are common. In spring they come to the 

 neighborhood of Boston in the latter part of April, at about 



