88 HENSLOW'S SPARROW. 



SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Fringilla passerina Wils. (1811). Coturniculus passeriaus honap. (1838). Emberiza 

 passerina Aud. (1839). Friiigilla savannaram (Gmel.) Nutt. (1832). AMMODRAMUS SAVAN- 

 NARUM PASSBRINUS Ridgw. (1885). 



DESCRIPTION: "Feathers of the tipper parts, brownish-rufous or chestnut-brown, margined narrowly and 

 abruptly -with ash-color; reddest on the lower part of the back and rump; the feathers, all abruptly 

 black in central portion; this color visible on the interscapular region, \?here the rufous is more 

 restricted. Crown, blackish, with a central and superciliary stripe of yellowish- tinged with brown, 

 brightest in front of the eye. Bend of wing, bright yellow; lesser coverts, tinged with greenish- 

 yellow. Quills and tail-feathers, edged with whitish; tertiaries, much variegated. Lower parts, 

 brownish-yellow or buff, nearly white on the middle of the belly, darkest on the jugulum. The feathers 

 of the upper breast and sides of the body with obsoletdy darker centers, these sometimes wanting. 

 Sides of breast against bend of wing with a few black streaks, usually concealed." (B. B. & ^.) 

 Length, 4.85 to 5.20 inches; wing, 2.43; tail, 1.87 inches. 



HENSLOW'S SPARROW, 



Ammodramus henslowi Gray. 



WHIS interesting little Sparrow is quite common in restricted localities from southern 

 New England west to the edge of the Great Plains and north to Ontario. During 

 my ten years' residence in northern Illinois I found this species the most. abundant of 

 the genus in Cook Co. and Du Page Co., 111., where it frequented the low flower-adorned 

 grassy prairies everywhere. In its habits it agrees almost entirely with the Grasshopper 

 Sparrow^, but its song is quite different, being somewhat louder and more prolonged. 

 It consists of a number of notes sounding like sit-sit-sit-sit-ser-it. The common call- 

 note is a soft se-wick. While singing the bird is always perched on a tall weed stalk, 

 tittering incessantly its plain and feeble but emphatic strain, "the head being thrown 

 back and the tail inclining forward underneath the bird," in the manner of the Grass- 

 hopper Sparrow. 



Prof. Robert Ridgway found this Sparrow a common or even abundant bird on 

 Fox Prairie, Richland Co., 111., in June 1871. "Twelve years later it was exceedingly 

 numerous on the small remaining patch of open prairie (IGO acres in extent) in the 

 same locality, and also in a similar bit of prairie of equal extent which marked the last 

 vestige of the once extensive but since populous and well-cultivated Sugar Creek Prairie, 

 several miles to the south-west. These birds lie very close, allowing themselves to be 

 almost trodden on before flying ; and notwithstanding a very large number of females had 

 evidently been startled from their nests only one nest could be found. They had prob- 

 ably run some distance through the grass before flying, thus rendering search fruitless." 



In northern Illinois Henslow's Sparrow is a rather late arrival, none having been 

 observed by me before the second week of May. When they leave in fall I am unable 

 to say, but I have seen the first migrants in southern Missouri late in September, 

 which seems to indicate that they leave southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois by 

 the middle of September. 



It is very difficult to find the nest. Although having searched every spring, during 

 my residence in Illinois, for the nests of these birds, I only discovered five, and these were 



