BIRDS OF FIELD AND GARDEN. 311 



Massachusetts consists of insects, mainly injurious species, 

 such as are eaten by other Sparrows. It is particularly fond 

 of beetles. It eats more ants than do most Sparrows, many 

 cutworms, a few spiders, and some snails. The vegetable 

 food consists largely of the seeds of pigeon grass, panic 

 grass, wild rice, and marsh grasses. 



Vesper Sparrow. Grass Finch. Bay-winged Bunting. 

 Pocecetes gramineus. 



Length. About six inches. 



Adult. Above, grayish-brown, finely streaked with dusky ; crown finely 

 streaked, but with no dividing line ; cheeks buffy, with a dark patch ; 

 a narrow white eye ring ; below, whitish (buffy where streaked) , narrowly 

 streaked with brown or black on breast and sides ; a bay patch near the 

 bend of the whig; tail dark, moderately long; outer tail feathers white. 



Nest. On ground. 



Eggs. Dull white or buffy, with many spots, usually overlaid by large dark 

 marks and scrawls. 



Season. April to October. 



The Vesper Sparrow is, next to the Song Sparrow, the 

 most abundant ground Sparrow in Massachusetts. It is gen- 



Fig. 139. Vesper Sparrow, one-half natural size. 



erally distributed wherever there are open fields and upland 

 pastures, but it is not a bird of the meadows, and is not as 

 common in some parts of southeastern Massachusetts as else- 



