OF NEW ENGLAND. 201 
not divided. Below, white (often buff-tinged); breast and 
sides streaked with brown or black. Wings marked with bay. 
Eye-ring white. 
(b). The nest is invariably placed on the ground, generally 
in a pasture or field. It is lined with fine roots, dried grasses, 
or horse-hairs. In Massachusetts two sets of eggs are laid, 
one in the last week of May or earlier, and the other a month 
or more later, each containing four or five. These average °80 
X ‘60 of an inch, but exhibit several variations in coloration. 
One specimen before me is white, irregularly spotted and 
blotched with a rather light reddish-brown and extremely faint 
lilac, and measures ‘87 X °65 of an inch. Another is dull livid 
white, with fine but almost invisible markings scattered over 
the egg, and a few large umber-brown spots, some of which 
are surmounted with black. These forms are almost two ex- 
tremes. A third has scrawls and vermiculations on it, and 
there are still others entirely distinct in character. 
(c). The Bay-winged Buntings, with the exception of the 
Song Sparrows and ‘‘Chippers,” and perhaps the Goldfinches, 
are the most abundant members of their family to be found in 
New England, during summer. Though they sometimes reach 
Eastern Massachusetts in March, they more commonly appear 
in the second or third week of April, and become plenty before 
May. Usually a few only can be found here in November, the 
majority returning to the South in the preceding month. A 
very few may possibly spend the winter in this State, but I 
have never known such to be the case. In early spring, they 
are to be found in fields, pastures, vegetable-gardens, and 
ploughed lands, often in association with other species, or 
gathered by themselves. They are not so persistent in remain- 
ing on or near the ground as the Savannah Sparrows (being 
rather less nimble), are not so much confined as those birds 
are to certain localities, and are not, I think, usually so com- 
mon near the sea-shore as in the interior. They have, how- 
ever, a'much more limited distribution, being found in summer 
neither so far to the northward or southward. 
The so-called Grass Finches, though they spend much of their 
