Conspicuously Black and White 
decrease in numbers, take extra precautions for the safety of their 
young by making very deep excavations for their nests, often as 
deep as eighteen or twenty inches. 
The Chewink 
(Pipilo erythrophthalmus) Finch family 
Called also: GROUND ROBIN ; TOWHEE ; TOWHEE BUNT- 
ING ; TOWHEE GROUND FINCH ; GRASEL 
Length—8 to 8.5 inches. About one-fifth smaller than the robin. 
Male—Upper parts black, sometimes margined with rufous. Breast 
white; chestnut color on sides and rump. Wings marked 
with white. Three outer feathers of tail striped with white, 
conspicuous in flight. Bill black and stout. Red eyes; feet 
brown. 
Female—Brownish where the male is black. Abdomen shading 
from chestnut to white in the centre. 
Range—From Labrador, on the north, to the Southern States ; 
west to the Rocky Mountains. 
Migrations—April. September and October. Summer resident. 
Very rarely a winter resident at the north. 
The unobtrusive little chewink is not infrequently mistaken 
for a robin, because of the reddish chestnut on its under parts. 
Careful observation, however, shows important distinctions. It 
is rather smaller and darker in color; its carriage and form are 
not those of the robin, but of the finch. The female is smaller 
still, and has an olive tint in her brown back. Her eggs are in- 
conspicuous in color, dirty white speckled with brown, and laid 
in a sunken nest on the ground. Dead leaves and twigs abound, 
and form, as the anxious mother fondly hopes, a safe hiding 
place for her brood. So careful concealment, however, brings 
peril to the fledglings, for the most cautious bird-lover may, and 
often does, inadvertently set his foot on the hidden nest. 
The chewink derives its name from the fancied resemblance 
of its note to these syllables, while those naming it ‘‘ towhee” 
hear the sound fo-which, to-which, to-whee. Its song is rich, 
full, and pleasing, and given only when the bird has risen to the 
branches above its low foraging ground. 
It frequents the border of swampy places and bushy fields. 
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