BIRDS OF 



attitude, and above all the feeling of weariness expressed in the 

 plaintive notes of the bird, reminded me strongly at the time of 

 the Yellow-hammer of Britain. 



Allan Brooks has also found this species breeding at Milton, 

 a few miles north of the west end of Lake Ontario, but such 

 cases are by no means common in this district. In the fall they 

 are again seen in limited numbers, but at that season the 

 plumage of the male has lost much of its brightness, and young 

 and old, male and female resemble each other in appearance. 



Their food, which consists chiefly of seeds, is obtained on or 

 near the ground. During October they are seen travelling from 

 one brush pile to another, and by the end of that month they 

 are gone for the season. 



GENUS SPIZELLA BONAPARTE. 

 218. SPIZELLA MONTICOLA (GMEL.). 559. 



Tree Sparrow. 



Bill black above, yellow below ; legs brown, toes black ; no black on 

 forehead ; crown chestnut (in winter specimens the feathers usually skirted 

 with gray) bordered by a grayish-white superciliary and loral line, and some 

 vague chestnut marks on sides of head ; below, impurely whitish, tinged 

 with ashy anteriorly, washed with pale brownish posteriorly ; the middle of 

 the breast with an obscure dusky blotch ; middle of back boldly streaked 

 with black, bay and flaxen ; middle and lesser wing-coverts black, edged 

 with bay and tipped with white, forming two conspicuous cross bars ; inner 

 secondaries similarly variegated ; other quills and tail-feathers dusky, with 

 pale edges. Length, 6 ; wing and tail, nearly 3. 



HAB. Eastern North America, westward to the Plains, and from the 

 Arctic Ocean south, in winter, to the Carolinas, Kentucky and Eastern 

 Kansas Breeds north of the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains. 



Nest, indifferently on the ground or in a tree or bush. 



Eggs, bluish-green, speckled and blotched with reddish-brown. 



In Southern Ontario the Tree Sparrow is a regular winter 

 visitor, arriving from the north during the month of October, 

 and remaining over the winter in sheltered hollows or among 

 the brush and weeds by the banks of streams. In appearance 



220 



