SPARROWS IN THE FIELD. 39 



closely cropped pasture of Bermuda grass with comparatively few 

 seeds. Here they gathered such sustenance as they could secure, 

 keeping their heads to the blast and looking like so many trout head- 

 ing upstream. The}^ apparently preferred to battle with these 

 adverse conditions rather than feed from weed stalks, which offered 

 plenty of food in sheltered situations. They seemed to have no regard 

 for cover. Out in the pasture they hopped about ravenously eating 

 seed after seed, hunger having apparently driven away all fear. More 

 than 200 were thus engaged, chiefly Juncos and tree sparrows, but 

 with song sparrows, white-throats, and field sparrows also present. 

 They covered the pasture completely, and by consuming an enormous 

 quantity of the seeds of the Bermuda grass, or wire-grass as it is 

 locall}' known, prevented in a measure the blowing of the seeds to 

 truck land, where this grass is the worst weed of the farm and entails 

 an annual expense of $200 to the owner. 



During the two following days the wind, together with some melt- 

 ing, caused bare spots to appear in the snow^ on the truck land and 

 orchards beyond the pasture. The sparrows straightway left the wire- 

 grass for the crab-grass, ragweed, and lamb's-quarters that abounded 

 in the truck land and orchards. Ground feeding proved to be the 

 habitual method, although the white-throats and a song sparrow were 

 seen feeding on ragweed stalks, and a junco and a tree sparrow on those 

 of lamb's-quarters. Most of the sparrows fed on crab-grass wherever 

 it was exposed, and they flocked so thickly in it that one might have 

 collected several with a single discharge of a shotgun. A flock of 100 

 goldfinches fed with the sparrows. The service rendered by the 300 

 birds was doubtless of considerable value; when a large number of 

 birds thus work together within a limited area the good is evident. 



In addition to the main bod}^ of sparrows, there were certain more 

 or less isolated little troops of individuals about various parts of the 

 farm. On some poor land back from the river there were about 20 

 field sparrows that fed from the exposed culms of broom sedge. During 

 the snowy weather no sparrows except tree sparrows were seen with 

 them, but afterwards they were joined by juncos and song sparrows. 

 Song sparrows, during the coldest and most blustering days, were 

 seen scatteringly all along the sandy beach of the Potomac between 

 the ice sludge and the foot of the river bluff, but almost entirely 

 deserted the bushj^ brooks and fence rows, where the snow was from 

 2 to 3 feet deep. Many repaired to grain barns, where they obtained 

 weed seeds, feeding, like the birds in the Bermuda-grass pasture, in 

 the worst wind-swept places and with their heads to the blast. Jun- 

 cos occasionally associated with these song sparrows and often took 

 refuge with them in the barn&. Several song sparrows were found 

 foraging with a flock of 50 English sparrows in the cow yard of the 

 stock barn and about the hog x:)en. One of these and all the English 

 sparrows went into various parts of the barn in search of grain. 



