176 



The Junco with its black breast, light coloured bill, aud white bordered 

 tail is conspicuous amongst the large flocks of sparrows passing through or 

 tarrying in the spring and autumn. 



Economic Status. The effect of the Junco on agriculture is almost 

 wholly beneficial. During its stay in the more settled sections it consumes 

 large quantities of weed seeds. The insects it takes are mostly harmful 

 Little or no exception can be taken to it as it does no perceptible damage, 

 to crops or fruit. 



581. Song Sparrow, pe. — i^e pinson chanteur. Melospiza melodia. L, 6-30. 

 Plate XXXIV A. 



Distinctions. Rather like the Vesper Sparrow in size and general coloration, but 

 darker and more decided in tone; lacks the white outer tail feathers. The breast streaks 

 are also sharper and darker brown and aggregated in the middle into a weU-defined spot. 

 The lack of the yellow stripe over the eye separates the Song from the Savannah Sparrow 

 and the sharply streaked breast from any of the other sparrows of comparable size and habit. 



Field Marks. Sharply striped breast and central spot. The absence of the white 

 outer tail feathers will giiard against confusion with the Vesper Sparrow, and longer tail, 

 lack of yellow lores, voice, and general attitude distinguish the Song Sparrow from the 

 Savannah. 



Nesting. On ground, more rarely in bushes, in nest of coarse grasses, rootlets, dead 

 leaves, strips of bark, etc., lined with finer grasses and sometimes long hairs. 



JDistribution. As a species, the Song Sparrow inhabits aU of America to the tree limits. 

 Our eastern form extends west to the central prairie provinces. 



<S UBSPECIES. The Song Sparrow is a wide ranging species and has been divided into 

 many subspecies, twenty being recognized in North America and a number more proposed. 

 Most of these are western forms originating in the broken land of the Pacific coast where 

 isolated colonies and varied conditions have favoured numerous departiu-es from type. 

 In eastern Canada the form recognized is the Eastern Song Sparrow M. m. melodia, the 

 tjrpe race. 



It is difficult to form a just and unprejudiced estimate of the standing 

 of the Song Sparrow in the avian chorus. Its little medley of chirps and 

 trills makes a sustained song of some duration and to those who listen 

 to it sympathetically it has a gladness, brightness, and sweetness of tone 

 that is difficult to surpass. The bird is almost omnipresent. It lives in 

 the shrubbery close about the house and is one of the familiar bi rds of the 

 garden. It haunts the thickets on the edge of the wood-lot or bordering 

 little streams or rivulets. The deep woods and the clean open fields are 

 the only places where it is generally absent and even there it sometimes 

 surprises us with a burst of liquid song. 



Economic Status. The great numbers of the Song Sparrow render it 

 most important to the agriculturist. An analysis of its food shows that 

 only 2 per cent is composed of u§eful insects and 18 per cent of harmful 

 insects. Waste grain constitutes 4 per cent and weed seeds 50 per cent. 

 The remainder is composed of wild fruit and other unimportant material. 

 It is seen from this that the Song Sparrow is of considerable economic 

 importance. Investigation has shown that one-quarter of an ounce of 

 weed seed a day is a fair estimate of the amount consumed by a seed- 

 eating sparrow. For the nine months the Song Sparrow is with us in the 

 average eastern Canadian locality the consumption amounts to four 

 and a quarter pounds per individual per year. Allowing seventy-five 

 Song Sparrows per square mile as a very conservative estimate of population 

 we get a total for the southern cultivated parts of Ontario of over eleven 

 thousand tons of weed seed destroyed annually by this one species. 



