200 Scientific Froceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



also found upon the open prairie, along the edges of roads and 

 watercourses, and in the mixed land, about the junction of the 

 timber with the prairie. When put up, they fly only a short dis- 

 tance, and then drop into a bunch of grass, where they remain 

 hidden until the danger is past, but if again approached, they 

 seek to escape by running, which they are able to accomplish 

 with considerable swiftness, nor unless close pressed will they 

 again take wing. I have frequently seen them thus run several 

 hundred yards along a prairie track, sooner than take wing a 

 second time. Though often seen in flocks they are not strictly 

 gregarious, since, if disturbed, each one flies away according to 

 individual fancy. They are eminently terrestrial in all their 

 habits, nevertheless I have seen them feeding among the upper 

 branches of trees in company with Reguli or Dendroecce. Usually 

 they never alight on anything higher than a fence or low bush, and 

 that only early in the morning and late at night, when they congre- 

 gate in such places, and monotonously repeat a few notes which 

 can hardly be dignified by the name of a song. Their food con- 

 sists entirely of small seeds. The greater number of these spar- 

 rows leave us during March, but a few pairs certainly linger 

 until at least the beginning of June, and I am inclined to believe, 

 though I was unable to find a nest, that these bring out a brood 

 in the more low and damp parts of the prairie, and then retire 

 further north to complete the duties of the season. 



PocECETES GRAMINEUS (Gmel.) Grass Finch. — The grass finch 

 arrives in this county about the last week of October, and for a 

 short time is plentiful. Most of them, however, pass on further 

 south, leaving but a few scattered stragglers to pass a solitary 

 existence about the prairie fences and homesteads, where they 

 remain until February, when they join the migratory bands then 

 commencing to pass north. From that time until the middle of 

 March they are found commonly about the edges of the timbered 

 districts and the wooded creeks upon the prairie. They feed 

 upon different seeds, among which wheat is often found, and 

 occasionally a grasshopper or a few small insects are swallowed. 

 The form which I obtained is intermediate between typical 

 gramineus and Var. confinis. •j- 



COTURNICULUS PASSEEINUS (Wils.) Yellow-winged Sparrow. 

 ■—This pretty little finch arrives with us about the middle of 



