22 NOUTII AMKRICAM P.IRDS. 



week, I found this same ]>air, wliicli T easily ivcoj^nized, building tlieir nest 

 anion*,' some vines near my liouse, some eight teet tVom the ground. They 

 had abandoned my neighbor's grounds and taken refuge dose to my liouse. 

 This situation tliev resorted to afterwards for several successive sunnners, each 

 season buildhig two nests, never using the same nest a second time, altliougli 

 each time it was left as clean and in as good condition as wlien first made. 

 Indeed, this species is remarkable for its cleanliness, both in its own person 

 and in its care of nestlings and nests. 



They feed their young chietly with insects, especially small caterpillars ; 

 the destructive canker-worm is one of their favorite articles of food, also the 

 larviX3 of insects and the smaller moths. When crundis of bread are given 

 them, they are eagerly g.ithered and taken to their nests. 



In the Middle States they are said to have three broods in a season. This 

 may also be so in Xew England, but I have never known one pair to have 

 more than two broods in the same summer, even when both had been suc- 

 cessfully reared. Nests found after July ha\e always been in cases where 

 some accident had befallen the preceding brood. 



The nest of the Song Si)arrow, whether built on ground, bush, or tree, is 

 always well and thoroughly made. Externally and at the base it consists of 

 stout stems of grasses, fibrous twigs of plants, and small sticks and rootlets. 

 These are strongly wrought together. "Within is made a neat, well-woven 

 basket of fine long stems of grasses, rarely anything else. On the ground 

 they are usually concealed beneath a tuft of grass ; sometimes they make a 

 covered passage-way of several inches, leading to their nest. When built 

 in a tree or shrub, the top is often sheltered by the branches or by dry 

 leaves, forming a covering to the structure. 



The eggs of the Song Sparrow are five in number, and have an average 

 measurement of .82 by .GO of an inch. They have a ground of a clay-color 

 or dirty white, and are spotted ecpially over the entire egg with blotches of 

 a rusty-brown, intermingled with lighter shades of i)urple. In some these 

 markings are so numerous and confluent as to entirely conceal the ground- 

 color ; in others they are irregularly diffused over different parts, leaving 

 patches unmarked. Occasionally the eggs are unspotted, and are then not 

 unlike those of Lcacostictc griscinucha. 



Melospiza melodia var. fallax, Baird. 



WESTERN SONG SPAEBOW. 



Zmotrichia falhiy, Baiiid, Pr. A. N. Sc. Ph. VII, June, IS')*, 119 (Put-l.lo Crook, New 

 ^loxico). i Zonot rich ill fasciata, (Om.^ Oamrel, .1. A. N. Sc. Ph. 2d Series, I, 1847, 

 49. Melos-piza fallax, Baiud, IJinls X. Am. 1858, 481, pi. xxvii, f. 2. — IvEyNEULY, 

 P. R. Pi. X, h. pi. xxvii, f. 2. — Cooi-Kii, Orn. Gil. I, 215. 



Sp. Char. Similar to var. mehih'a, but with t\w bill on the whole rather smaller, 

 more slender, and darker. Legs quite duskv, not yellow. Entire plumage of a more 



