210 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 
near one another, to sing until one finally succumbs, often 
falling dead on the floor of his cage! 
XIV. SPIZELLA 
(A) socraris. Chipping Sparrow. “Chipper.” Etc. “Hair- 
bird.” 
(A very common summer-resident in Massachusetts, and 
almost throughout the United States.) 
(a). About 53 inches long. Crown, chestnut; forehead, 
black (former in 9 often black-streaked). Interscapulars, red- 
dish-brown, edged with paler and black-streaked. Rump, ashy 
(slightly streaked ?). Tail forked, and dusky with pale edgings. 
Superciliary line, light; eye-stripe, dark. Under parts, white ; 
lower throat and breast, very light warm gray (= “pale ash”). 
Two narrow white bars on the wings, which otherwise accord 
with the back and tail. (Bill black, occasionally paler; never 
reddish as in pusillus.) 
(b). The nest is almost invariably composed of fine rootlets 
(occasionally—in pastures—of straw, and therefore compara- 
tively bulky), and is lined with horse-hairs, whence the name 
“« Hair-bird.” I have one made entirely of white hairs, and 
strikingly different from all other specimens of bird-architec- 
ture. The nest is usually placed, not far from the ground,’ 
in shrubbery near houses, in piazza-vines, or in cedar-trees — 
particularly those in pastures ; also not infrequently in pines 
or orchard-trees, and less often in shade-trees. The eggs aver- 
age ‘68 X 48 of an inch, and are light but bright bluish-green, 
with dark purplish and black markings, which form a ring 
about the large end (and are rarely like the scrawls on the 
eggs of the blackbirds, §17, IV). In Massachusetts, two sets 
of four or five are usually laid every year, the first of which 
commonly appears about the first of June. 
(c). The Chipping Sparrows are the most familiar and abun- 
dant summer-residents in Massachusetts, of all the numerous 
finches. They reach the neighborhood of Boston about the 
-°TIn a few exceptional cases it has been found upon it. 
