142 CHIPPING SPARROW. 
overrun the land. He was introduced into this country 
in 1851, and in 1870 was found only in the cities of the 
Atlantic States. Now he has spread over the greater 
part of the United States and Canada. 
If he were restricted to the cities we should have only 
his never-ceasing, maddening chatter and our soiled walls 
to complain of ; but he has invaded not only the towns 
and villages and the neighboring houses, but visits also 
our grain fields and fruit orchards, our woods and marshes. 
No effective method for his extermination has been de- 
vised, and I fear we must accept the Sparrow as a penalty 
for the shortsightedness and ignorance which permitted 
us to meddle with the laws of Nature. 
If we except this ever-present nuisance the Chippy — 
is the most domestic of our Sparrows. He seems thor- 
Chipping Sparrow, OUghly at home about our doorsteps; a 
Spizella socialis. contented, modest little bird who ap- 
Plate XLV. parently tries hard to believe in the 
goodness of human nature, even though he meets with 
but little encouragement. One wonders why he has not 
long ago given up the attempt to make friends with us, 
so rarely do we show any appreciation of his advances. 
The house cat is Chippy’s chief enemy. Crouching and 
crawling, waiting and watching, she misses no opportunity 
to pounce on an unsuspecting bird. It is surprising that 
any escape. But each spring, about April 10, the Chippy 
comes back to us after a winter in the cotton, corn, and 
broom-sedge fields of the South, and soon we hear his 
unpretentious, monotonous chippy-chippy-chippy, many 
times repeated, and occasionally running into a grasshop- 
perlike trill. . 
About a month later we may find further evidence of 
his too often misplaced trust in a neat, hair-lined nest 
built in the vines on the veranda or a neighboring tree. 
The eggs are unexpectedly pretty, a bright blue or bluish 
of 
