288 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



172. Passerella iliaca (Merr.). 

 Fox Sparrow. 



Transient visitor, usually very common and sometimes abundant ; of occasional occur- 

 rence in winter. 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE.* 



March 3, 1871, three seen, Belmont, W. Brewster. 



March 15 — April 12. 

 April 25, 1895, one seen, Cambridge Region, W. Faxon. 



October i, 1871, one seen, Cambridge, W. Brewster. 



October 20 — November 15. (Winter?) 

 December 26, 1903, one seen, Cambridge, H. M. Turner. 

 December 26, 1904, one seen, Maple Swamp, A. C. Comey. 



The Fox Sparrow visits us with unfailing regularity in early spring and late 

 autumn, but in numbers which vary greatly with different years. During some 

 seasons the attractive birds are met with only sparingly, but they are usually 

 common, and occasionally so abundant that I have seen upwards of one hundred 

 in a single flock, and two or three hundred in the course of a morning walk. 

 They were exceptionally scarce for five or six years following the winter of 

 1 894-1 895 when they perished by thousands, from cold and starvation, in the 

 South Atlantic States, but they have increased rapidly during the past three or 

 four seasons and are now nearly back to their normal numbers. 



Fox Sparrows, like Juncos, prefer upland to swampy places, although they 

 are sometimes seen along the banks of brooks in thickets of alders and other 

 bushes. Their favorite haunts in the Cambridge Region are dense second- 

 growth woods, where the trees are largely pines, hemlocks, or other ever- 

 greens ; rocky pastures plentifully sprinkled with Virginia junipers ; and clusters 

 or belts of bushes bordering roadsides and neglected weed-grown fields. They 

 often appear in apple orchards and among ornamental evergreens in cultivated 

 grounds. We see them very regularly in our garden, although they visit it less 

 frequently and numerously now than they did twenty-five or thirty years ago, 

 when it was by no means uncommon to hear half a dozen males singing at once 

 in the Norway spruces close to the house. No one who has listened to such a 

 chorus is likely ever to forget the sudden outburst of wild, exquisitely modulated 

 voices rising above the rushing sound of the boisterous March wind. Strange 

 to say, the birds sing most freely and with the greatest spirit during stormy 

 weather, especially when snow is falling. 



