230 THE BIRDS 
specked, spotted or blotched with black and_ blackish- 
brown. Size, .70x.52. Two and sometimes three broods 
a season are raised. First setting May 10th to 20th. 
These birds are much smaller than the English Sparrow, 
and should not be confused with them when laying the 
blame rightly belonging to that pest. We found them 
breeding in the Alleghenian zone as high as 4,000 feet 
altitude. 
[563]. Spizella pusilla pusilla (Wilson). Field 
Sparrow. 
Ranex.—KEastern North America. Breeds in Transition 
and Austral zones from southern Minnesota, southern 
Michigan, southern Quebec, and southern Maine to central 
Texas, central Louisiana, and northern Florida; winters 
from Missouri, Illinois, southern Pennsylvania, and New 
Jersey to the Gulf Coast; casually further north. 
Wintering with us, as do many of the sparrows, the 
warm days find them singing, but more softly than in the 
spring, as though afraid some one would hear them and 
tell them to stop. Around my farm their nesting sites 
range from the currant bushes to the thorny french arti- 
choke plants, and, with the Chipping Sparrow, they form 
an important factor in keeping down the bugs and insects 
in the truck patches. The nest is rather a flimsy-made 
structure of coarse and fine grasses, lined with finer 
grasses. Eges three to four in number, grayish-or bluish- 
white, spotted and blotched with light brown and lilac. 
Size, .65x.50. A series shows great variation in mark- 
ings, shape, and size. The nest is placed a few inches 
above ground, in any suitable place, from a clump of 
