16 



BIRDS OF A MARYLAND FARM. 



foraged in cropped pastures aud among hoed crops. Unlike the field 

 sparrow, it sought cover, not in bushes, but in trees isolated as in 

 orchards. On account of these habits its work is more or less com- 

 plementary to that of the field sparrow. Neither species was noticed 

 feeding to any important extent in standing timothy, the habitat of 

 the grasshopper sparrow, but they both destroyed weed seeds and 

 insects over a large part of the farm, even out in the center of lot -i 

 far from cover. In August and September they fed together in loose 

 flocks along fence rows. At this time there were nearly a hundred of 

 the two species, the chipping sparrow being the more numerous. 



Song Sparrow. — The song sparrow (fig. 3) is a bush bird, which, 

 though feeding on the ground, is generally too cautious to venture far 

 afield. It is essentially a bird of the waterways, and bred in the 

 undergrowth along Persimmon Branch and the river, in the hog-lot 

 gully, and about the calamus swamp; yet, like the chipping sparrow, 



it came with confi- 

 dence up to all the 

 buildings. It for- 

 aged over the gar- 

 den and dooryard 

 and along a strip 

 several rods wide 

 extending from the 

 house to the mouth 

 of Persimmon 

 Branch. In feed- 

 ing here it usually 

 avoided the open 

 parts of newly 

 plowed fields, but 

 ran amid corn, 

 wheat, tobacco, 

 truck, and timothy, and, as will appear later, did considerable good in 

 this way. It spent much time along the river shore, however, and 

 thus wasted opportunities for protecting crops. In summer it was 

 less abundant than the chipping sparrow or the field sparrow, but after 

 the breeding season it came down from the North in great flocks and 

 did good work among weeds. 



Other native sparrows. — Fox sparrows, and many tree sparrows 

 ]uncos, and white-throated sparrows also come down from the North 

 in the fall. The fox sparrows are cover-loving birds, and frequented 

 the tangle of the river front and Persimmon Branch, seldom yenturing 

 more than a rod into the fields. The whitethroats usually associate 

 with song sparrows, and were found all along hedgerows and water- 

 ways. The tree sparrows associate with field sparrows, and like them 

 preferred broom-sedge fields, though they, too, often followed the 



Kg. 3. — Song sparrow. 



