TREE SPARROW. " 75 



which ragweed furnishes 9 percent and the polygonums 16 percent. 

 During October ragweed alone constitutes 45 percent of the month's 

 food. 



The white-throated sparrow may be regarded as a valuable bird on 

 the farm; it has a good record as a weed destroyer, its fruit eating is 

 largel}^ confined to wild berries, and it does little damage to grain 

 fields. 



TREE SPARROW, 



(Spizella monticola and Spizella m. ochracea.') 



The tree sparrow (see frontispiece) breeds in Labrador and the Hud- 

 son Bay region and westward to Alaska. In the fall the birds come 

 down from the north in immense throngs and spread over the United 

 States as far south as South Carolina, Kansas, and Arizona. During 

 the winter, in company with juncos, white-throats, white-crowns, and 

 fox sparrows, they give life to the hedge rows, tangled thickets, and 

 weed patches. Their song is not heard until just before they leave in 

 the spring, but throughout the winter wherever they are encountered 

 a mingled chorus of innumerable conversational and alarm notes 

 greets the ear. In appearance they somewhat resemble chipping 

 sparrows, and have sometimes been called winter chippies; but thej^ 

 are readily distinguished from that bird by their larger size and by a 

 dark spot on the breast, the chipping sparrow's breast being unmarked. 



Five hundred and seventeen stomachs have been examined, col- 

 lected at points ranging from Massachusetts to the District of Colum- 

 bia, and westward as far as Iowa and Kansas, and during the period 

 from October to May. As indicated by these examinations, the food 

 of the tree sparrow during its stay in the United States is almost 

 entirely made up of seeds, which amount to 98 percent of the total 

 food contents of the stomachs examined. The bird shows an essen- 

 tial difference from its associates, however, in its large consumption 

 of grass seed, full}^ half of its food consisting of this element, pani- 

 ciims, pigeon-grass, and allied grasses being apparently preferred. 

 It feeds on cultivated millets. Mr. F. F. Crevecoeur, of Onaga, Kans., 

 states that the tree sparrow is as much of a pest as the English spar- 

 row in damaging shocks of Hungarian millet which are not securely 

 covered in the fall and winter. Mr. Crevecoeur sent in a score of 

 stomachs of tree sparrows which were crammed full of seeds of mil- 

 let. But in sections where millet seed is not left exposed the birds 

 are very serviceable, for they then turn their attention to such weeds 

 as pigeon-grass, crab-grass, poverty grass (Aristida), and sheathed 

 rush grass. They also feed to a limited extent on the seeds of other 

 grasses. Each of several of the stomachs examined contained from 

 100 to 200 seeds of timothy, June grass, or broom sedge. 



Nearly two-thirds of the vegetable food that is not grass seed is 

 derived from such plants as ragweed, amaranth, lamb's-quarters, and 



