BIRDS OF FIELD AND GARDEN. 311 
Massachusetts consists of insects, mainly injurious species, 
such as are eaten by other Sparrows. It is particularly fond 
of beetles. It eats more ants than do most Sparrows, many 
cutworms, a few spiders, and some snails. The vegetable 
food consists largely of the seeds of pigeon grass, panic 
grass, wild rice, and marsh grasses. 
Vesper Sparrow. Grass Finch. Bay-winged Bunting. 
Pocecetes gramineus. 
Length.— About six inches. 
Adult.— Above, grayish-brown, finely streaked with dusky; crown finely 
streaked, but with no dividing line; cheeks buffy, with a dark patch; 
a@ narrow white eye ring; below, whitish (buffy where streaked), narrowly 
streaked with brown or black on breast and sides; a bay patch near the 
bend of the wing; tail dark, moderately long; outer tail feathers white. 
Nest. — On ground. ; 
Eggs.— Dull white or buffy, with many spots, usually overlaid by large dark 
marks and scrawls. 
Season. — April to October. 
The Vesper Sparrow is, next to the Song Sparrow, the 
most abundant ground Sparrow in Massachusetts. It is gen- 
é 
Fig. 139.— Vesper Sparrow, one-half natural size. 
erally distributed wherever there are open fields and upland 
pastures, but it is not a bird of the meadows, and is not as 
common in some parts of southeastern Massachusetts as else- 
