THE CHEWINK,OR TOWHEE BUNTING 



ALEXANDER WILSON 



THIS is a very common but humble and inoffensive species, 

 frequenting close sheltered thickets, where it spends 

 most of its time in scratching up the leaves for worms and for 

 the larvae and eggs of insects. It is far from being shy, fre- 

 quently suffering a person to walk round the bush or thicket 

 where it is at work without betraying any marks of alarm, and 

 when disturbed uttering the notes towhd repeatedly. At 

 times the male mounts to the top of a small tree and chants 

 his few simple notes for an hour at a time. These are loud, 

 not unmusical, somewhat resembling those of the Yellow- 

 hammer of Great Britain, but more mellow and more varied. 

 The Chewink is fond of thickets with a southern exposure, 

 near streams of water, and where there are plenty of dry 

 leaves, and is found generally over the whole of the eastern 

 United States. He is not gregarious, and you seldom see 

 more than two together. These birds arrive In Pennsylvania 

 about the middle or 20th of April, and begin building about 

 the first week in May. The nest is fixed on the ground among 

 the dry leaves near and sometimes under a thicket of briars, 

 and is large and substantial. The outside is formed of leaves 

 and pieces of grape-vine bark, and the inside of fine stalks of 

 dry grass, the cavity completely sunk beneath the surface of 

 the ground and sometimes half covered above with dry grass 

 or hay. The eggs are usually five, of a pale flesh color, 

 thickly marked with specks of rufous, most numerous near the 



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