OF NEW ENGLAND. 221 



they can obtain in swamps, stubble-fields, or on the roadsides ; 

 but they also frequent woodland. They are so shy as to escape 

 general notice, the more so from their strong resemblance to 

 the " Peabody-birds " (Z. albicollis). 



(d) . I have heard them sing during their brief stay here but 

 once or twice. Their song, and their "tseep," are almost 

 exactly like those of the White-throated Sparrow, already 

 described. 



XVI. PASSERELLA 



(A) ILIACA. Fox-colored Sparrow. Fox Sparrow. 



(A common migrant through New England, but never resi- 

 dent there.) 



(a). About seven inches long. Above, bright rusty-red or 

 fox-color ; back with large, and crown with small, ashy streaks. 

 Wings, rusty, with two slender white bars. Below, white; 

 marked, except on the belly, with chains of rusty or fox-colored 

 blotches, which are here and there confluent. 



(&). The nests and eggs, as is the case with many others 

 which are not .to be found in New England, I must describe 

 through other writers. Dr. Brewer says : "Their eggs measure 

 from -92 to an inch in length, and -70 in breadth. They are 

 oblong in shape. Their ground-color is a light bluish-white, 

 thickly spotted with a rusty-brown, often so fully as to conceal 

 the ground." 



(c). The Fox-colored Sparrows are the largest and most 

 strikingly handsome of all our sparrows, and as musicians are 

 unsurpassed by any birds of that group. They are among the 

 few land-birds that are known to occur in New England as 

 migrants only, passing the summer in Labrador and other cold 

 countries. While journeying to the South, they are in Massa- 

 chusetts during the latter part of October, as well as through- 

 out the following month, and I have seen them here so late as 

 the ninth of December. Though they are then less often found 

 in swamps, and do not sing, their habits are otherwise the 

 same as in the spring. At that season, on their return to the 

 North, they usually reach Boston about the middle of March, 



