SPAREOWS IN THE FIELD. 33 



the year, would seize a spike by the middle, munch the seeds a few 

 seconds, and then pass to the next. Pigeon-grass was treated in like 

 manner. The seeds of these two grasses are more commonly eaten 

 by sparrows later in the season after they have dropped to the ground. 



Twenty or thirty chipping sparrows were observed on June 16 

 {1898) about a field of ripening wheat that lay back from the river. 

 Some of them had doubtless bred near the field, but some had come 

 from the buildings along the river front. They often flew out into 

 the wheat— 100 yards from the fence — to a luxuriant growth of rag- 

 weed, and destroyed many beetles {Systena hlanda), pests that proved 

 very injurious during the next season. Several field sparrows were 

 also noted, but these did not accompan}^ the chipping sparrows intO' 

 the wheat field, but stayed chiefly among the weeds and briers of an 

 adjoining old cornfield. 



Field sparrows showed no striking differences from chipping spar- 

 rows in diet, for, although the nesting sites of the two species were) 

 quite distinct, the feeding ranges constantly overlapped. One ijair 

 with recently fledged young, however, occupied a weedy old tobacco) 

 seed-bed among the woods, hundreds of j^ards from the nearest point at 

 which chipping sparrows occurred. Here the old birds were eating 

 crab-grass and feeding their young on caterpillars and grasshoppers. 



On one day early in September a flock of 15 field sparrows was 

 observed moving from point to point beside an osage-orange hedge 

 that extended back from the river several hundred yards. The birds 

 were feeding on crab-grass that grew along the hedge, but every now 

 and then one would spring up into the air and seize a braconid 

 (Melanobracon) , numbers of which continually flew about amid the 

 herbage of the field. Braconids, often erroneously called ichneumon 

 flies, are of much value earlier in the season owing to their attacks 

 on caterpillars. 



Field and chipping sparrows sometimes feed together near water 

 courses. In such case I always found song sparrows feeding with 

 them. During August (1898) the three species were frequently 

 together in a tobacco fleld beside the negro cabin. This fleld was so 

 infested with tobacco worms that the crop for that year had already 

 sustained a loss of 50 percent; but none of the sparrows appeared to 

 molest the worms, which perhaps were larger than they could con- 

 veniently handle, but fed chiefly on such insects as subsist on the) 

 weeds of the tobacco fleld. As these insects at times forsake the> 

 w^eeds and attack crops, their destruction is of more benefit -than, 

 injury. Field sparrows were found feeding in the cornfields fromi 

 the time the corn tasseled until it was harvested. They w^ere also) 

 partial to briery old cornfields, where they were often associated withi 

 grasshopper sparrows. Chiijping sparrows fed in cornfields, old or' 

 growing, only when they were near buildings, and song sparrows 

 never entered them except in the vicinity of a water course. 



