LAND BIRDS. 499 
feathers broadly white-tipped, combine to mark this sparrow unmistakably. 
Distribution.—Southern Ontario and Mississippi Valley region, from 
Ohio, Illinois and Michigan to the Plains, south to eastern Texas and 
northwestern Alabama. Accidental near the Atlantic coast. 
This is a prairie sparrow which is said to have invaded Michigan from 
the west during the last thirty years, but which is just as likely to have 
been here in small numbers from time im- : 
memorial, extending its area, however, as the 
woods were removed and the country came 
under cultivation. 
It is nowhere abundant in Michigan, but it 
is not rare as a summer resident in certain 
localities, although even there its numbers 
vary greatly from year to year. We have i 
numerous records from Wayne, Washtenaw, ig. 115. Tark Sparrow. Re- 
Monroe, Lenawee, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Kent printed from Chapman's Handbook 
and St. Clair counties, all in the southern half {ea, by courtesy of D. Anniston & 
of the state. The bird must be very local in COm™P°7y: 
its distribution, for the writer has sought for it carefully but unsuccessfully 
in Oakland, Genesee, Livingston, Eaton, Clinton and Ingham counties, in 
territory apparently just as favorable as the localitiesin Jackson, Washtenaw 
and Lenawee counties where it has been found. It is listed as common at 
Marquette, on the south shore of Lake Superior, by Miss Mowbray, although 
no specimens were taken, and it has not been found there by other observers. 
In the summer of 1906 Mr. W. M. Wolfe reported the Lark Sparrow nesting 
near Beulah, Benzie county. He writes: ‘ With the Lark Sparrow I am fairly 
familiar, as with the Cardinal. It did not nest in the timber, but in the 
brush that grows abundantly on the wide beach of Crystal Lake. The eggs 
were characteristic. Its note led to its identification.”’ With these two ex- 
ceptions it has not been found north of a line through Grand Rapids and 
Port Huron, but since it ranges north to Manitoba, and is by no means un- 
common over a large part of Minnesota, it is not improbable that it may 
yet be found in numbers in parts of the western half of the Upper Peninsula. 
Professor A. J. Cook recorded it from the Agricultural College (Birds of 
Michigan, 2d ed., 1893, p. 113), but we have been unable to find on what 
authority, and certainly it has not been seen there during the past eighteen 
ears. 
: In its habits and song it much resembles the Vesper Sparrow, and 
frequents similar open pasture lands, roadsides, and cultivated fields along 
the edges of orchards and woods. Ridgway speaks of its song in Illinois 
as resembling that of the Indigo-bird, but louder, clearer and more metallic. 
Its marked colors, and particularly the white in the tail, which invariably 
suggests the Mourning Dove, render it conspicuous wherever it occurs 
and it is not likely to be overlooked. 
While it feeds mainly on seeds of grasses and weeds, it also eats many 
insects, particularly grasshoppers. 
It appears to nest wherever found. Mr. Mark B. Mills records a nest 
with five eggs at Macon, Lenawee county, April 20, 1896, and Mr. Trombley 
took three eggs at Summerfield, Monroe county, May 7, 1889. We have 
a set of five eggs in our College collection taken by L. Whitney Watkins 
at Fairview Farms, Jackson county, May 20, 1896. The nest is most often 
placed directly on the ground, more rarely in a low bush, and is built of 
grasses and weed-stalks, and lined with various fibrous materials, usually 
