SAVANNA SPARROW. 325 
SAVANNA SPARROW. 
GROUND SPARROW. 
AMMODRAMUS SANDWICHENSIS SAVANNA. 
Cuar. Above, streaked with grayish brown, black, rufous, and gray ; 
line over the eyes and edges of wings yellow; crown with median stripe 
of yellowish white ; line from lower mandible yellowish white bordered 
by brown; below, white tinged with buff, breast and sides streaked with 
brown and black. Length 5% inches. 
Vest. In a salt-marsh or along a river bank, sometimes in a dry 
inland meadow, concealed by tall grass or tuft of weeds ; composed of 
grass, sometimes mixed with fine roots, and occasionally lined with 
horse-hair. 
£ggs. 3-6; variable in shape, size, and markings, usually dull white 
or with green tint, thickly spotted with dark brown, rich brown, and 
lilac; 0.70 X 0.55 
This Sparrow, allied to the preceding, but far less familiar, is 
commonly seen in this part of New England from April to 
October, migrating towards the South in severe weather, though 
many pass the whole winter in the Middle States. In Georgia 
and West Florida these birds are rather numerous in the cold 
season, migrating in quest of food probably from the West ; 
and the whole species generally show a predilection for the 
warm and sheltered vicinage of the sea, where the seeds and 
insects they feed on are most abundant. On their first arrival 
in Massachusetts they frequent the sandy beaches and shores 
of the bays in quest of Czcindele and other coleopterous 
insects which frequent such situations; and they are at this 
time exceedingly fat, though their moult is not yet completed. 
In summer this shy and timid species lives wholly in pastures 
or grass fields, and often descends to the ground in quest of 
food. Its nest, also laid in the grass and made of the dry 
blades of the same, very similar to that of the Song Sparrow, is 
usually built about the close of April. 
In the month of March, in Georgia, I observed these Spar- 
rows in the open grassy pine woods on the margins of small 
swamps or “ galls.’” At times they utter a note almost exactly 
similar to the chirpings of a cricket, so that it might be easily 
mistaken for that insect. At other times they utter a few 
