WEED SEED. 73 



lected from this orchard and 10 from other parts of the farm. Crab- 

 grass seeds were found to have formed 54 percent of their food, one 

 stomach containing 150 seeds. Most of the remaining- 46 percent 

 consisted of such weeds as green fox-tail grass, yellow sorrel, spotted 

 spurge, and purslane, with a very small quantity of ragweed. Other 

 sparrows were found feeding on crab-grass and the foregoing weeds 

 during the last week of August and the first jjart of September, 1898. 

 It is important to remember at this point that each of the sparrows 

 that live on the farm in summer, namely, the song, chipping, field, and 

 grasshopper sparrows, has its own peculiar habitat, and to note that 

 the consequent diversity of feeding ranges makes their work more or 

 less complementary, hence more valuable. 



Autumn to late spring. — From autumn to late spring evidence of the 

 seed-eating habits of sparrows is so plain that he who runs may read. 

 The influx of noi-thern migrants has by this time increased the sparrow 

 population several-fold, and as the leaves have fallen and the crops have 

 been cut, the lively flocks diving here and there among the brown weeds 

 to feed are familiar adjuncts of every roadside, fence row, and field. 

 Sparrows were collected only during November, 1899, February, 1900, 

 and April, 1899. In all, 76 were taken, which comprised 25 song spar- 

 rows, 23 white-throats, 12 field sparrows, 11 j uncos, 3 chipping spari'ows, 

 a grasshopper sparrow, and a savanna sparrow. Seventy percent of 

 their food was weed seed, and the proportion would have been much 

 larger if the birds collected in April could have been taken in March, 

 for they had eaten of the abundant April insects almost to the exclu- 

 sion of seeds. 



field observations. — ^The mere examination of stomachs does not give 

 an adequate notion of the extent and the methods of weed-seed eating. 

 It was not feasible to collect stomachs enough to show the character- 

 istics of all the birds of the farm. A few minutes' field observation, 

 however, would often tell what a large flock was doing in cases where 

 it would have been impossible to collect more than a few individuals. 

 Several notes are cited below to illustrate the sparrow's work, which 

 begins, as has already been said, before the seeds are ripe, and con- 

 tinues throughout fall and winter and even far into spring. 



In a rank weedy growth of crab-grass and green fox-tail grass in 

 the truck plot of lot 3 a flock of 20 j uncos was watched for half an 

 hour, November 15, 1899, as they breakfasted on seeds. At this time 

 most of the seeds had fallen and the birds picked them up under the 

 plants instead of taking them from the stalks as the chipping sparrows 

 had done in August. On the following day the same flock, with about 

 an equal number of white-throated sparrows and song sparrows, flew 

 to the wheat stubble of lot 8, beside the negro cabin, and busily 

 gathered fallen seeds of ragweed which had made a rank growth there. 



