BIRDS OF NEW YORK 31 1 



entirely on weed seeds, and during the summer largely on smooth cater- 

 pillars, young grasshoppers, beetles and other insects. 



The call note of the Field sparrow is a gentle " tsip." His song is 

 a beautiful performance delivered in a minor key, but almost endlessly 

 varied by different individuals. It usually begins with two or three clear, 

 high-pitched notes, followed by a rapid run of numerous shorter notes, 

 often in a descending scale, but sometimes in a rising trill and ending in 

 a clear sustained note. Occasionally the song seems inverted, beginning 

 with a run and ending with the high, long tones; and frequently the per- 

 formance is immediately repeated with slight variation of its original 

 form, or in a wholly different key. What the Vesper sparrow is to the 

 wide grassy fields, the Field sparrow is to the brushy hillside, pouring forth 

 his pensive strain both in the morning and at the close of day, and inspiring 

 the passerby to gentler and more humanizing reflections. 



The nesting season begins early in May, the first sets of eggs being 

 found between the I4th and 25th of May; later sets from the 2ist of June 

 to the 2 1st of July. The nest is usually placed on the ground or in a thick 

 bush not far above it; composed of coarse grass stalks, weeds and rootlets, 

 and lined with fine grasses and hair. The eggs are 3 to 5 in number, grayish 

 white or bluish white in ground color, speckled and spotted with reddish 

 brown and obscure shell markings thickest near the larger end of the egg. 

 Average size .7 by .52 inches. 



Junco hyemalis hy emails (Linnaeus) 

 Slate-colored Junco 



Plate &2 



Fringilla hyemalis Linnaeus. Syst. Nat. Ed. 10. 1758. 1:183 

 Struthus hyemalis DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 147, fig. 138 

 Junco hyemalis hyemalis A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 1910. p. 266, 



% 567 



junco, derivation uncertain, Coues says, from Lat., juncus, a reed; hyemalis, Lat., of 



winter 



Description. Upper parts, and the head, neck and breast, slaty gray; 

 under parts from the middle of the breast to the under tail coverts white, 



