CHIPPING SPAEKOW 161 



light gray around it ; in the Chipping Sparrow the black 

 line through the eye and the white line over it give the 

 head a very different appearance. 



Chipping Spaekow. Spisella socialis 

 5.37 • 



Ad. — Crown reddish-brown, a gray line over the eye, a black 

 line through it ; cheek gray ; back brown, streaked with black ; 

 under parts ash-gray ; bill black (cinnamon-brownish in winter) ; 

 tail long and slender, rather deeply notched. Im. — Young birds 

 in the first plumage have the breast streaked, in the next they 

 lack the reddish crown. 



Nest, always lined with horsehair, placed in a bush, vine, or 

 low tree. Eggs, bluish, with brown or blackish markings. 



The Chipping Sparrow is an abundant summer resident 

 throughout New York and New England, breeding even in 

 the forested regions wherever there are 

 clearings and cultivated ground. It arrives 

 early in April and remains through Octo- 

 ber. It is common in the village door- 

 yards, about farm buildings, along the 

 roadsides, and in the pasture, especially 



where there are groves of red cedars. It „ „, . . 



° Fig. 4.3. Chipping 



is unsuspicious, and often comes to the Sparrow 



doorstep in search of food. 



The song is a succession of staccato notes, or rather the 

 same note repeated rather rapidly ; the songs of diflferent in- 

 dividuals vary greatly as to time. The song resembles that 

 of the Snowbird, but is drier and less musical ; the Swamp 

 Sparrow's song is still more powerful and musical, while the 

 Pine Warbler's song'is a trill, the notes running lazily into 

 each other. The Chipping Sparrow's call-note is a slight tsip. 



The reddish-brown crown and unstreaked ashy breast 

 distinguish it readily from most of the other sparrows ; 

 from its close relative the Field Sparrow it may be told in 



