158 Bird Studies. 



upper parts are chestnut brown, with black streaks and gray edgings. There 

 is a gray stripe over the eye and the bend of the wing shows yellow. The 

 tail is long in proportion to the entire bird ; its feathers are narrow and the 

 outer ones are much the shorter. The lower parts are dull whitish, the breast 

 grayish brown, the sides and flanks darker ashy brown, and the belly lighter 

 or white. The breast is sometimes marked with a few brown spots. The 

 sexes are alike. 



The nest is built on the ground, sometimes in a thick bunch of grasses, 

 but more frequently under the low saw palmetto. The eggs, three to five in 

 number, are white unmarked, a little over seven tenths of an inch long and 

 three fifths of an inch in width. 



This bird is a close ally of the last, as indicated by its name. It is a bird 



however of much wider distribution, being found in the Carolinas, Northern 



„ , , _ Georofia, and Alabama, and west to Texas. In the warm- 



Bachman's Spar- ^ . ^ , . ■ , tvt- •■ — ir n 



^ er portions of the year, it occurs in the Mississippi Valley 



Peucaea jEstivaiis bachmanii 3.S far uorth as Southem Illinois and Indiana. It winters 



(Aud.). jfj j-j^g South Atlantic and Gulf States to Southern Florida. 



Very similar to the Piney-woods Sparrow, this bird is much more tawny 



above, often without black markings, and brighter colored throughout. The 



stripe over the eye is buff in color, the breast and sides are distinctly shaded 



with the same color. The nesting and eggs are very similar in the two birds, 



though the Bachman's Finch is said to build a covered nest. 



The White-throated Sparrow is one of our commonest finches during 



the migrations, and though introduced as a wood bird it is equally at home 



,,„ . ^^ , ^ in hedgerows, along- roads, and in the thickets and shrub- 

 White-throated , . ^, , , 



Soarrow beries about the house. 



"zonotrichia aibicoiiis The birds are about six inches and three quarters 



"^"'''■'- long, and are readily distinguished by their size, a yellow 



mark in front of the eye, the yellow on the bend of the wing, and the mark- 

 ings on the head and 'throat. In adult birds of both sexes there is a narrow 

 white stripe in the centre of the crown, between two wider black stripes which 

 join the yellow region above and in front of the eye. A white stripe pro- 

 ceeds from the eye backward. The back is brown, each feather streaked 

 with black and finely bordered with buffy or grayish white. The rump is gray- 



