LAND BIRDS. 529 
The bird is well known everywhere as a constant inhabitant of brush and 
open woods, being especially abundant along the margins of woodlands 
adjoining recently cleared areas. It is one of the commonest of roadside 
birds and one can hardly drive a mile along a country road anywhere in 
the Lower Peninsula without seeing several. It spends most of its time 
on the ground, searching for food, where it scratches like a chicken and 
makes as much noise as a Brown Thrasher or a squirrel. 
Its food consists mainly of seeds and insects, though it is fond of wild 
fruits and eats almost everything, from strawberries and blackberries to 
wild cherries and grapes. It has never been known to damage cultivated 
fruits or cause loss of any kind to the farmer. Owing to the nature of its 
haunts it perhaps is not actively beneficial, though it probably does its 
share in keeping injurious insects in check. 
It nests almost invariably on the ground, building an open but usually 
well hidden nest, at the foot of a bush or in a brush heap, the nest con- 
sisting mainly of fine grasses and fibrous roots and containing four or five 
eggs, which are white or pinkish, thickly peppered with reddish brown, 
and average .94 by .71 inches. Possibly one nest in fifty is built in a bush 
or tangle of vines a foot or two above the ground. Dr. Woleott records 
a nest at Grand Rapids placed eight feet from the ground in a broken 
thorn tree, July 26, 1892, and another at Ann Arbor, June 16, 1894, 
placed on top of a stump. Two broods are reared almost always, 
one in June, the other in late July or August, eggs being found 
late in#May and again in July. The nest seems to bea favorite one 
for the Cowbird, and perhaps no other species is more often chosen for 
a foster parent. Two, three or even four Cowbird’s eggs are frequently 
found in a Chewink’s nest, and occasionally five or six have been found, 
although in such cases the nest is usually deserted. The eggs of the two 
species resemble each other somewhat, although the Cowbird’s egg is apt 
to be smaller and to lack the pinkish tint which is usually characteristic 
of the Chewink’s. 
It owes the names Chewink, Towhee and Jo-ree to its common two- 
syllabled call-note, which to our mind is best expressed by the word 
chewink. Seton Thompson says its common song is like ‘“chuck-burr- 
pill-a-will-a-will-a; it has also a note like ‘twee’ (not towhee).” While 
singing the male usually selects the top of a tall bush or a low tree and 
often repeats the song a score of times without changing his perch. 
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 
Adult male: Head, neck, chest, and entire upper parts ekear black; lower breast and 
belly pure white in sharp contrast; sides, flanks and under tail-coverts rusty red or chest- 
nut; wings mainly black, the secondaries unmarked but primaries and tertiaries with 
white spots and streaks; tail long, slightly rounded, clear black, the outer three or four 
pairs of feathers with broad, pure white tips; bill black; iris red. Adult female: Precisely 
like the adult male except that all the black is replaced by plain brown (umber brown); 
bill dusky above, brown below; iris reddish-brown. Young birds resemble adults in wings 
and tail, but have the head, back and breast yellowish-brown, streaked with blackish. 
Length 7.50 to 8.75 inches; wing 3.30 to 3.75; tail 3.55 to 4.10. 
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