SAVANNAH SPARROW. 



Savannah This Sparrow is one of the early birds of 



Sparrow spring in New York and New England, its 



Passcrculus . .. ,. , , ' . 



sandwichensis earliest appearance in New York being 

 savanna March 23d, and in New Hampshire 



L. 5.75 inches (Hanover) April 9th. In the autumn it 

 March 2 5 th ig a b un dant from the first to the middle 

 of October, the southern migration ending between 

 the 25th of October and the 15th of November. A 

 few of the birds remain all winter in the vicinity 

 of Washington, D. C. Very closely related to the Grass- 

 hopper Sparrow, its song and colors are in many respects 

 similar; upper parts streaked with sepia, brownish red 

 and ashen gray somewhat deeper than the coloring of the 

 Vesper Sparrow, a yellow stripe over the eye, a streak of 

 gray white in the centre of the crown, under parts dull 

 white tinged with buff and streaked with sepia on the 

 breast and sides, the spot in the centre of the breast definite 

 but not conspicuous, legs and feet pinkish, tail rather 

 short. The range of this species is from central Keewatin 

 and northern Ungava to northern Iowa, Pennsylvania 

 and Connecticut ; it winters from New Jersey and Indiana 

 south to eastern Mexico and Cuba. Its common haunts 

 are open grassy fields, wet meadows, and the edges of salt 

 marshes on the coast of New England, Long Island Sound, 

 and New Jersey. Nest, on the ground snuggled beneath a 

 clump of sedges or tall grass, composed of grasses ,moss, 

 and a few hairs. Egg, blue- white heavily flecked with 

 burnt sienna brown, cinnamon brown, and dull purple 

 madder. 



The song of the Savannah Sparrow is an extremely high- 

 pitched, stridulent, rippling trill or reiterated note, nearly 

 but not quite a monotone. It is similar to the song of the 

 Grasshopper Sparrow although that is a monotone; it 

 begins with two or three chips, sharply staccato, which 

 introduce a high trill first on one tone and finally on another 

 perhaps a semi-tone lower, there is this distinct division of 

 the reiterated note/rom one tone to the other however slight 

 the musical interval may be. That is not the case with the 

 Grasshopper Sparrow, and it should not require a very 

 sharp ear to detect this fundamental difference. Here 

 is my studied transcription of the music. It is important 



285 



