162 THE BIRDS OF NEW JERSEY. 



edged with bay ; legs, brown. The young are spotted with 

 dusky below. 



The nest is built on the ground or in a tussock in 

 swamps, o£ coarse grasses, roots, leaves and bark, lined 

 with finer grasses and sometimes with hair. The eggs 

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

 color, with brown spots and frequently brown blotches, and 

 three-fourths by three-fifths of an inch in size. 



The birds breed in the Eastern United States from the 

 Middle States northward and winter from the southern 

 border of the Middle States southward. Some breed and 

 some winter in New Jersey but they are more plentiful 

 here during the spring and fall migrations. 



Their song is a lisping tweet- tweet -tweet, very short. 



Their food consists of grass seeds, wild oats and insects. 



Sparrow^ Tree, or Winter Chippy. — Length, six 

 and one-third inches; extent, nine and a half inches; 

 bill, two-fifths of an inch, black, except the lower 

 part of the base, which is yellow; head, a bright 

 bay, sometimes with gray edgings, a gray line over 

 the eye and a bay line behind it; back, dark brown, 

 with streaks of bay, black and light buff; breast, grayish 

 white, with faint black and bay spot in the centre; mid- 

 dle of belly, white; rump, gi-ayish brown; sides, grayish 

 brown, lighter than rump; tail, forked, black, with out- 

 side edge buffy white; wings, dark brown, tipped with 

 white, forming two bands across the middle; legs, brown- 

 ish clay; feet, brownish black. 



The birds nest on or near the gi'ound, the nest being 

 built of grasses, roots and hair. The eggs are either four 

 or five in number, of a pale green or a greenish blue with 

 brown spots, and three-fourths by three-fifths of an inch 

 in size. ^ 



The birds breed in the far north and in winter are dis- 

 tributed throughout the eastern United States; in New 



