OF VIRGINIA 229 
GENUS SPIZELLA. 
[560]. Sprzella passerina passerina (Bechstein). 
Chipping Sparrow. 
Raner.—Eastern North America. Breeds in Canadian, 
Transition, and Austral zones from central Saskatchewan, 
southwestern Keewatin, northern Ontario, central Quebec, 
and Cape Breton Island to central Texas, southern 
Mississippi, and central Georgia; winters chiefly in 
southern states, occasionally as far north as Oklahoma 
and southern New Jersey; casual in Cuba and north- 
eastern Mexico. 
Large numbers of these sparrows winter with us, and, 
in company with other species of sparrows and juncos, 
are found working through the second growth and fields 
in search of food, destroying many of the noxious seeds 
and insects. I wouldn’t be without these sociable little 
birds on my farm, especially during the early transplant- 
ing period of cauliflower, peppers, tomatoes, egg plant, 
etc. Many a time have I watched them go the full length 
of a hundred-and-fifty-foot row of young egg plant in my 
truck garden, and running along underneath, hop up and 
pick off the insects on the under side of the leaves. There 
is no better remedy for the cut worms on a truck farm 
than a few pairs of Chipping Sparrows. Would they 
were as plentiful as that pest, the English Sparrow! They 
nest about anywhere, from berry bushes, two and a half 
feet up, to the extremity of a pine limb twenty-five feet 
up and fifteen feet from the trunk. The nest is composed 
of fine grasses, rootlets, or weed stems, lined with hair. 
Eggs, three to four in number, greenish-blue, sparingly 
