124 CHIPPING SPARROW. 



style, he has a beautiful view of the landscape around him. Behind the house the Rock 

 River flows through a piece of the forest primeval. This region was once the favorite 

 habitation of a great people, as the ancient city Aztalan and the many mounds as 

 well as the innumerable implements of stone and copper which were and are still found 

 near the Rock River and throughout Jefferson County, show. Mr. Hoffmann is especially 

 fond of the birds which abound on his grounds. The Orioles in the elm trees, the Vireos 

 and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks in the adjoining woodland, the Catbird in the honey- 

 suckles, the Thrasher in the hedge-row, the Swallows in the air, the Wrens, Martins, 

 and Bluebirds around their nesting boxes, the Song Sparrows, Indigo-birds, and Summer 

 Warblers in the ornamental shrubs, all these birds are tenderly loved and protected. 

 There are few places in this State where so many small birds congregate. 



Nowhere have I seen so many Chipping Sparrows, or Hairbirds, than here. In 

 the dense red .cedars and evergreens which surround the house, and in the ornamental 

 shrubs they find excellent nesting places and a safe retreat in case of danger and during 

 the night. As everywhere else the Chippy is a great favorite here, although the clever 

 little gray fellow in its jaunty rusty-red cap is not an elegant bird like its neighbor, the 

 Indigo Bunting, or like the exquisite Rose-breasted Grosbeak and the Scarlet Tanager 

 in the adjoining woodland. Its simple notes which consist of a rapid succession of sharp 

 sounds, may be heard from a bush or a small tree by the wayside or in the garden 

 throughout the day until the evening falls. This song sounds as if "bits of flint were 

 being chipped by striking against each other." I do not know of any bird having a 

 similar song, except the Worm-eating Warbler, a species common in the central regions 

 of our country and frequenting the woods. "If you hear a Chippy sing in the \\roods 

 near St. Louis and in southern Illinois," says Mr. Widmann, "you may be sure to have 

 made the acquaintance of the Worm-eating Warbler." A very striking trait in the life- 

 history of our Hairbird is its familiarity, combined with a good deal of "self-possession 

 if not self-assertion." Without fear the bird approaches the house, coming even in the 

 vicinity of the kitchen door to pick up crumbs and seeds. 



The Chipping Sparrow is everywhere a bird of the garden. Indeed, I have never 

 seen one, during the breeding season, far from the habitations of man. Gardens planted 

 with dense evergreens and ornamental shrubbery, even in our large cities, are its favorite 

 haunts. In the farmer's gardens, where often neither tree nor shrub has been planted for 

 ornament, the Chippy makes its home in a dense currant or gooseberry bush. Although 

 being found from Georgia and Arkansas to the Arctic regions, I nowhere observed it more 

 frequently than in Wisconsiii. Along the Atlantic coast it breeds as far north as Nova 

 Scotia and New Brunswick, and it has been met with in considerable numbers at Fort 

 Resolution, on Great Slave Lake, and at Fort Simpson and Fort Rae. In the United 

 States it is distributed from the Atlantic to the Great Plains, wintering from about 40° 

 southward. From the Rocky Mountains west to the Pacific it is represented by the 

 Western Chipping Sparrow, S. socialis arizonae CouES, which occurs north to beyond 

 60°, wintering as far south as southern Mexico. This variety seems not to be quite as 

 familiar as the true species. Prof Ridgway found it in abundance in all the wooded 

 portions of the Great Basin. He did not meet with it among the cotton-woods of the 

 river valleys, its favorite haunts appearing to be the cedars and nut-pines of ttie 



