THE BIRDS OF NEW JERSEY. 159 



The food consists principally of insects and larvae 

 picked up along the sands. 



Sparrow, Song. Length, six and a half inches; ex- 

 tent, eight and a half inches; bill, half an inch, horn 

 color; crown, brown, with gray line down the centre, a 

 gray line over the eye and brown line behind the eye; 

 back, brown, with bay, gray and black streaks; breast, 

 white, streaked with chestnut and black, the spots coales- 

 cing in the middle and forming a more or less distinct spot ; 

 belly, white; sides, white with long pointed dark chest- 

 nut and black spots; tail, dark brown, edged with lighter 

 brown; wings, dark brown, edged with bay ; legs, flesh color. 



The birds nest on the ground or in bushes, the nest be- 

 ing built of grasses, roots, leaves and bark, lined with fine 

 grasses and sometimes with hair. When undisturbed the 

 birds bring out three broods in a season. The eggs are 

 four or five in number, of a white or a bluish white, with 

 numerous brown spots and blotches, differing in intensity 

 of color in different nests, and three-fourths by three- 

 fifths of an inch in size. 



The birds breed in the Eastern United States north of 

 the Southern States and are generally distributed. In 

 New Jersey they are the most numerous of all the Spar- 

 rows; they prefer the vicinity of water and in the winter 

 large numbers of them betake themselves to the swamps 

 and meadows along the Delaware. 



The song, which is heard day and night for twelve 

 months in the year, more sparingly in the winter months, 

 somewhat resembles! the beginning of a Canary's song, 

 but it is different whether uttered on the wing or in the 

 bush. Thoreau compares it to Olit, olit, olit chip, chip, 

 chip, che-char che-wiss, wiss, and again to Maids, 

 maids, maids, hang on your teakettle- ettle-ettle. 



The food of the birds consists principally of seeds of 

 grass and the larvae of insects. 



