SPARROWS 247 



May 3. McCormack has seen it at Leighton at intervals be- 

 tween October 18 and April 25. I saw one at Fairhope, Octo- 

 ber 16, and several at Bon Secour, October 18 to 25, 1908. At 

 Orange Beach, in January, 1912, it was fairly common in wet 

 swamps. About 6 were seen on Petit Bois Island, February 

 12, 1912. The last seen in spring at Barachias was on May 1 

 (1913). 



General habits. — This sparrow is found not only in swamps, 

 but also in fields overgrown with brush and briers and par- 

 ticularly in wet patches of broom sedge. It feeds chiefly on 

 the ground and threads its way silently through the brush like 

 a mouse ; it is frequently taken by mammal collectors in mouse 

 traps set in weedy fields or in broom sedge. In its summer 

 home in the North it lives in swamps and marshy meadows 

 and places its nest on the ground or in a tussock of sedges. 

 The song is described by Langille as a trill — "in a clear, 

 whistling tone, sounding like tswee-tswee-tswee-tswee-tswee- 

 tswee-tswee-tswee, quite sibilant, the notes being essentially 

 the same as those of the chipping sparrow, only in much more 

 prolonged and musical tones — a sort of enlarged and improved 

 edition of it."J 



Food habits. — More than half the food of the swamp spar- 

 row consists of the seeds of sedges, grasses, and weeds, chief 

 among which are seeds of bindweed (Polygonum) and giant 

 ragweed. The insect food includes grasshoppers, caterpillars, 

 leaf beetles, weevils, bugs, ants, and flies. 



FOX SPARROW: Passerelia iliaca iliaca (Merrem). 



State records. — The fox sparrow occurs sparingly as a win- 

 ter resident. Brown records it rather common at Coosada 

 and mentions seeing stragglers in an old rice field until the 

 third week in March. McCormack found it rare at Leighton, 

 where it was seen November 19, December 17, and March 17. 

 Avery observed it at Greensboro on numerous dates between 

 November 19 and February 7. Graves records it from Sand 

 Mountain (March 27), Dean from Anniston (December 25), 

 Saunders from Weogufka (March 11), Golsan from Prattville 



^Langille, J. H., Our Birds in iheir Haunts, pp. 199-200, 1884. 



