CHIPPING SPARROW (Spizella passerina). 



Length, aboilt 5J inchee. Difltingtiiflhed by 

 the chestnut crown, black line through eye, and 

 black bill. 



Range: Breeds throughout the United States, 

 south to Nicaragua, and north to southern 

 Canada; winters in the southern United States 

 and southward. 



Habits and economic status: The chippir^ 

 sparrow is very friendly and domestic, and often 

 builds its nest in gardens and orchards or in the 

 shrubbery close to dwellings. Its gentle and 

 confiding ways endear it to all bird lovers. It 

 is one of the most insectivorous of all the spar- 

 rows. Its diet consists of about 42 per cent 

 of insects and spiders and 58 per cent of vege- 

 table matter. The animal food consists largely 

 of caterpillars, of which it feeds a great many to 

 its yovmg. Besides these, it eats beetles, includ- 

 ing many weevils, of which one stomach contained 30. It also eats ants, waspe, 

 and bugs. Among the latter are plant lice and black olive scal^. The v^e- 

 table food is practically all weed seed. A nest with 4 young of this species was 

 watched at different hours on 4 days. In the 7 hours of observation 119 feedings 

 were noted, or an average of 17 feedings per hour, or 4J feedings per hoiu* to each 

 jiestliag. This would give for a day of 14 hours at least 238 insects eaten by the 

 brood. (See Biol. Survey Bui. 15, pp. 76-78.) 



WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW (Zonotrichia leucophrys). 



Length, 7 inches. The only similar sparrow, the white-throat, has a yellow 



spot in front of eye. 

 Range: Breeds in Canada, the mountains of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, 



and Montana, and thence to the Pacific coast; winters in the southern half of 



the United States and in northern Mexico. 

 Habits and economic status: This beautiful sparrow is much more numerous 



in the western than in the eastern States, 

 where, indeed, it is rather rare. In the East it 

 is shy and retiring, but it is much bolder and 

 more conspicuous in the far West and there 

 often frequents gardens and parks. Like most 

 of its family it is a seed eater by preference, and 

 insects comprise very little more than 7 per cent 

 of its diet. Caterpillars are the largest item, 

 with some beetles, a few ants and wasps, and 

 some bugs, among which are black olive scales. 

 The great bulk of the food, however, consists of 

 weed seeds, which amount to 74 per cent of the 

 whole. In California this bird is accused of 

 eating the buds and blossoms of fruit trees, but 

 buds or blossoms were found in only 30 out of 516 

 stomachs, and probably it is only under excep- 

 tional circumstances that it does any damage m 

 this way . Evidently neither the farmer nor the 

 fruit grower has much to fear from the white- 

 crowned sparrow. The little fruit it eats is 

 mostly wild, and the grain eaten is waste or vol- 

 unteer. (See Biol. Survey Bui. 34, pp. 75-77.) 



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