BIRDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
39 
Plate VIII. 
ITPILO EEYTHROPHTHALMUS, Vieillot. 
Towhee Bunting. 
The Towhee Bunting, or Chewink, has an 'extended distribution 
thronglioiit the eastern portions of tlie United States, ranging from Florida 
and Georgia on the south-east to the Selkirk settlements on the north- 
west, and westward to the border of the Great Plains, where it is replaced 
by closely allied races. It breeds wherever found, certainly in Georgia, 
and, doubtless, in Florida, although sparingly. 
According to Wilson, it is found in the middle districts of Virginia, 
and thence soatli to Florida, during the months of January, February and 
March ; but as the weather grows mild, and Nature begins to don her 
livery of green, many forsake these haunts, and wing their flight to dis- 
tant localities ; reaching the Middle Atlantic States about the fifteenth 
of April, Massachusetts and Connecticut towards the last of the month, 
Maine and New Hampshire early in May, and the North-western States a 
little later. 
In some regions the birds arrive singly, but retire in small flocks. 
This is the case in the vicinity of Washington ; whereas in Fastern Penn- 
sylvania, they are somewhat gregarious for a week or ten days after their 
arrival, when they separate, and lead solitary lives. Their sole object now 
is the acquirement of food. For this purpose they repair to waste fields 
and damp thickets, or to small patches of underbrush along frequented 
roads. Here their simple song may be heard during the intervals of feed- 
ing, with scarce an intermission, from five o’clock in the morning until 
eight in the evening, by the early or belated pedestrian. In rain or in 
sunshine, or at noonday in the hottest weather of the season, the woods 
