6o2 Field Museum of Natural History — Zoology, Vol. IX. 



ning together and forming what appears to be a dark patch (notice- 

 able in the living bird when seen at a short distance) ; sides of body, 

 streaked with dark brown and pale rufous brown; middle of belly, 

 white; middle tail feathers, tinged with dull rufous brown; rest of 

 tail feathers, grayish brown, more or less faintly edged with rufous. 



Length, about 6.10; wing, 2.65; tail, 3; bill, .38. 



The Song Sparrow is an abundant summer resident in Illinois 

 and Wisconsin, and a not uncommon winter resident in southern 

 Illinois. The majority arrive from the south in March and leave 

 again in October, although specimens have occasionally been taken 

 as far north as southern Wisconsin in mid-winter. 



The song is loud and pleasing but two varied to be properly de- 

 scribed. The more common form begins with a clear note, repeated 

 three times, and followed by a complicated warbling trill. 



The nest is built on the ground or in low bushes and is made of 

 dry grass, shreds of bark, etc. It breeds from May until July. The 

 eggs are 4 to 5 in number, pale bluish white or dull white, thickly 

 marked and spotted with rufous brown; size about .78 x .59 inches. 

 The following records are selected from sets of eggs in the collection 

 of the Field Museum of Natural History: 4 eggs, Joliet. 111., May 3, 

 1906; 4 eggs, Joliet, 111., May 7, 1906; 4 eggs. Fox Lake, 111., June 

 8, 1907; s eggs, Milton, Wisconsin, July 9, 1895. 



268. Melospiza lincolnii (AuD.). 



Lincoln's Sparrow. 



Distr.: " North America at large, breeding chiefly north of the 

 United States (as far north as Fort Yukon) and in the higher parts 

 of the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada; south, in winter, to 

 Panama." (A. O. U.) 



Adult: Crown, chestnut brown, streaked with black and with 

 a grayish stripe through the centre, partially obscured by the black 



streaks; a gray stripe over the eye; 

 a post-ocular black streak and an- 

 other black streak from the lower 

 mandible, the latter often not clearly 

 defined; back, grayish olive brown, 

 streaked with black ; the inner second- 

 aries and some of the wing coverts 

 edged with pale rufous; primaries, 

 grayish brown, faintly edged with a 

 dull rufous brown; middle of throat, 



