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The Junco with its black breast, light coloured bill, and white bordered 
tail is conspicuous amongst the large flocks of sparrows passing through or 
tarrying in the spring and autumn. 
Economic Status. The effect of the Junco on agriculture is almost 
wholly beneficial. During its stay in the more settled sections it consumes 
large quantities of weed seeds. ‘The insects it takes are mostly harmful 
Little or no exception can be taken to it as it does no perceptible damage. 
to crops or fruit. 
581. Song Sparrow. FR.—LE PINSON CHANTEUR. Melospiza melodia. L, 6-30. 
Plate XXXIV A. 
Distinctions. Rather like the Vesper Sparrow in size and general coloration, but 
darker and more decided in tone; lacks the white outer tail feathers. The breast streaks 
are also sharper and darker brown and aggregated in the middle into a well-defined spot. 
The lack of the yellow stripe over the eye separates the Song from the Savannah Sparrow 
and the sharply streaked breast from any of the other sparrows of comparable size and habit. 
Field Marks. Sharply striped breast and central spot. The absence of the white 
outer tail feathers will guard against confusion with the Vesper Sparrow, and longer tail, 
lack of yellow lores, voice, and general attitude distinguish the Song Sparrow from the 
Savannah. 
Nesting. On ground, more rarely in bushes, in nest of coarse grasses, rootlets, dead 
leaves, strips of bark, etc., lined with finer grasses and sometimes long hairs. 
Distribution. As a species, the Song Sparrow inhabits all of America to the tree limits. 
Our eastern form extends west to the central prairie provinces. 
SUBSPECIES. The Song Sparrow is a wide ranging species and has been divided into 
many subspecies, twenty being recognized in North America and a number more proposed. 
Most of these are western forms originating in the broken land of the Pacific coast where 
isolated colonies and varied conditions have favoured numerous departures from type. 
In eastern Canada the form recognized is the Eastern Song Sparrow M. m. melodia, the 
type race. 
It is difficult to form a just and unprejudiced estimate of the standing 
of the Song Sparrow in the avian chorus. Its little medley of chirps and 
trills makes a sustained song of some duration and to those who listen 
to it sympathetically it has a gladness, brightness, and sweetness of tone 
that is dificult to surpass. The bird is almost omnipresent. It lives in 
the shrubbery close about the house and is one of the familiar birds of the 
garden. It haunts the thickets on the edge of the wood-iot or bordering 
little streams or rivulets. The deep woods and the clean open fields are 
the only places where it is generally absent and even there it sometimes 
surprises us with a burst of liquid song. 
Economic Status. The great numbers of the Song Sparrow render it 
most important to the agriculturist. An analysis of its food shows that 
only 2 per cent is composed of useful insects and 18 per cent of harmful 
insects. Waste grain constitutes 4 per cent and weed seeds 50 per cent. 
The remainder is composed of wild fruit and other unimportant material. 
It is seen from this that the Song Sparrow is of considerable economic 
importance. Investigation has shown that one-quarter of an ounce of 
weed seed a day is a fair estimate of the amount consumed by a seed- 
eating sparrow. For the nine months the Song Sparrow is with us in the 
average eastern Canadian locality the consumption amounts to four 
and a quarter pounds per individual per year. Allowing seventy-five 
Song Sparrows per square mile as a very conservative estimate of population 
we get a total for the southern cultivated parts of Ontario of over eleven 
thousand tons of weed seed destroyed annually by this one species. 
