OP ARTS AND SCIENCES 65 



Small companies representing families or neighborhoods 

 are seen in the autumn. One such company on September 26, 

 1908, numbered thirty-five birds. The habit of the Vesper 

 Sparrow to go for some distance in advance of one walking or 

 driving on the highway, by making runs or taking short flights 

 without leaving the road, has been very often exemplified in 

 our experience. 



113. Passerculus sandwichensis savanna. Savan- 



nah Sparrow. 



A common summer resident in fields in the valley and on 

 the hillsides. The song period extends almost or quite through 

 July, and sometimes reaches a few days into August, but ex- 

 pressions of the song are not heard later. The birds are less in 

 evidence, therefore, after the first of August than are the Vesper 

 Sparrows, and they seem not to gather as much into companies 

 or to remain quite as late as the latter. The song is much heard 

 from fence posts, or the wires strung between posts, and is one 

 of the earliest songs heard in the morning and one of the latest 

 given in the evening. 



114. Zonotrichia leucophrys leucophrys. White- 



crowned Sparrow. 



A spring and fall migrant, often in the autumn in good 

 numbers. On May 24, 1903, one was seen singing in the yard 

 of the Pliny Range House on the Highland, and on May 25, 

 1900, one was observed in the highway. 



In the fall the earliest birds which have appeared were seen 

 on September 21, in 1904, and in two years, 1901 and 1908, on 

 September 23. In five other years the first autumn record has 

 been on September 25 or 26. The numbers increase, the next 

 few days, and the largest numbers are usually present in the 

 first week of October. They often occupy the roadsides where 

 there is bushy growth, frequently in association with White- 

 throated Sparrows, and feed, when unmolested, on the road-bed, 



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