130 FIBLD SPARROW. 



Snowberry bushes are mostly used for this purpose. While roaming around in a half- 

 cleared piece of woodland on May 26, 1886, searching for nests of the Yellow-breasted 

 Chat, Hooded Warbler, Indigo Bunting, and Blue Grosbeak, I found quite a number of 

 the domiciles of the Field Sparrow, which outnumbered those of all other birds com- 

 bined. The nests were all built in snowberry bushes, which were represented in large 

 and dense single specimens and in thickets. In single specimens the branches hang down 

 to the ground. Indeed, I do not know a shrub that is more densely leayed or branched. 

 No sunbeam can penetrate, and the prying eyes of all kinds of robbers are unable to 

 detect the cozy little domicik hidden underneath and within a dense canopy of tangled 

 green. When carefully parting the twigs from above, I usually had a good view 'of the 

 nest and the breeding female before me. Looking at me with her innocent eyes for a 

 moment, she slipped oif silently by the other side. She then alarmed the male, and 

 both uttered anxious notes of distress. Other birds breeding preferably in these bushes 

 or the surrounding thickets also became alarmed, flying around as if terror-striken, and 

 trying to lead the intruder away from the place where their treasures were hidden. 

 Among these the Yellow-breasted Chat was most conspicuous, but Cardinals, Catbirds, 

 Thrashers, Hooded Warblers, White-eyed and Bell's Vireos, Blue Grosbeaks and Indigo 

 Buntings also appeared on the scene. 



The nest of the Field Sparrow is not so easily found as that of the Chippy, being 

 more carefull3^ concealed in the compact shrubs. In construction it is similar, although 

 more bulky and not so thickly lined with hair. The exterior consists of grasses, root- 

 lets, and fine plant stems, and the cavity is lined with horse hair. Nests on the gi-ound 

 are not sunken into a depression ; they are usually situated on the side of a shrub or 

 herb underneath the overhanging branches. They are still more bulky than those in bushes. 



I also found the nests often in brier patches on the road-sides, in wild gooseberry 

 bushes, and in vine-covered thickets. In Missouri the birds confine themselves during 

 the breeding season almost entirely to the bushy outskirts of upland w^oods. They were 

 never observed, during this time, in swampy or wet places. Two and sometimes three 

 broods are raised annually in the southern part of its summer home. 



The eggs, sometimes three and five, but usually four in number, have a bufify or 

 greenish-white ground-color, marked more or less thickly with blotches and specks of 

 ferruginous-brown. The markings are sometimes so dense, especially at the larger end, 

 as to almost wholly obscure the ground-color. The average size of the eggs is .68 X .52 

 of an inch. 



This humble little Sparrow has a very characteristic and melodious song, entirely 

 its own and widely different from all other bird songs I am acquainted with. It is an 

 untiring songster, singing its sweet lay usually from the tops of bushes, fence-posts, 

 stumps, telegraph wires from morning until the evening falls. Although singing at all 

 hours of the day, even in the noonday heat of the summer, its song is mostly heard in 

 the morning and evening, when the bushy fields and the woodland borders ring with 

 the sounds of dozens of performers. Where the birds are common, this song is one of 

 the most familiar to the ear. No other observer has given such a truthful and correct 

 account of the Field Sparrow's song, as Mr. John Burroughs in his alreadj' often men- 

 tioned little volume "Wake Robin." Mr. BuiToughs writes: 



