Not only winter visitors find here a congenial home, but also many resident species. 

 During the latter part of March and early in April the White-crowns usually prepare for 

 their journey to the North, but I have seen them as late as April 30 near Houston and in 

 the thickets near the West Yegua creek. In Oak Park, 111., I observed them every spring 

 from the last days of April until the middle of May. They were so tame that they 

 came under the kitchen windows to pick up crumbs and seeds. 



At Milwaukee this Sparrow usually arrives about May 1, though in mild seasons 

 the van may appear a few days earlier. They remain about two weeks, and some 

 stragglers tarry even till the last days of the month. In the fine gardens, rich in ever- 

 greens and ornamental shrubs, the exceedingly characteristic and fine strain of the 

 White-crowned Sparrow is heard from all sides on the sunny dnd warm days of May. 

 It sounds like pee-dee-de-de-de. The first two notes are long drawn and rising, the 

 rest hurried and lowering, the whole sounding like a mellow whistle, being easily imi- 

 tated. The song bears a close resemblance to that of the White-throat, but is readily 

 distinguished, being louder and less monotonous and plaintive. While uttering its lay 

 the bird is always mounted in the top of a tall shrub or a small tree, singing incessantly 

 for almost half an hour. If approached while thus engaged, the performer becomes 

 silent and dives hastily into the nearest cover, soon, however, appearing again in another 

 direction and singing as diligently as before. In the garden of Miss Hedwig Schlichting, 

 w^here large old apple trees, ornamental shrubs, and shade trees are found, and where 

 Scotch pines and Norway spruces grow in an adjoining garden, these birds are perfectly 

 at home during the migrations, especially in spring. My friend made the observation 

 that they are not equally abundant every year, and that they are much less numerous 

 as the White-throats, with whom she often found them associated. They leave earlier 

 for their northern home as their congeners, and they are so tame and unsuspicious that 

 they pick up the seeds which she supplies. In an apple tree near her window one male 

 w^as singing every morning during the fine days of May. 



Although the White-crowned Sparrow breeds abundantly in Labrador, it -is much 

 less common in New England during the migrations than more in the interior of the 

 country. Its summer home in the West are the high mountain ranges of the Sierra 

 Nevada and the Rocky Mountains, and north of the Great Lakes it breeds to the 

 Hudson's Bay Territory and Labrador. 



In northern Wisconsin and especially in northern Michigan — in the Lake Superior 

 region — this Sparrow is a rather common summer bird. A nest found by Mr. A. J. 

 Schoenebeck on June 9, 1891, in Oconto Co., Wis., w^as built on the ground and was 

 well concealed under a tuft of grass. It was constructed of grasses and lined with finer 

 grasses. The exterioi: diameter of the nest was 5.00 inches, the interior diameter 2.75 

 inches, and the cavity was 1.50 inch deep. The eggs, four in number, have a pale 

 greenish-blue ground-color, and are thickly speckled, sprinkled, and spotted with cinna- 

 mon and rusty-brown. Mr. Schoenebeck states that some sets of the eggs of this species 

 look as if the ground-color were a pale cinnamon-brown. They average in size .89X.64. 



"Like other naturalists," says Dr. Elliott Coues, "who have visited the forbidding 

 shores of Labrador, I found the White-crowned Sparrow one of the most abundant of 

 the summer birds of that country. Labrador and Newfoundland, indeed, appear to be 



