76 THE RELATIOIS' OF SPAEEOWS TO AGEICULTUEE. 



various kinds of iDolygoniims. The remainder is made up of a variety 

 of seeds none of which taken alone plays any significant part in the 

 diet, but which amount altogether to 10 percent of the food. These 

 are for the most part wild sunflower, golden-rod, chickweed, sedge, 

 birch, purslane, Avood sorrel, violet, and sheep sorrel. According to 

 Dr. Warren, the tree sparrow feeds on wild grapes and cedar berries, 

 but the laboratory investigations have thus far failed to show any 

 remains of fruit other than some seeds of blackberry and blueberry, 

 which were picked up in early spring. 



The animal food during the bird's stay in the United States amounts 

 to 2 percent, a quantity too small to be of much economic interest. It 

 consists of weevils and other beetles, such as ground-beetles and 

 rove-beetles, also wasp-like insects, ants, caterpillars, bugs, grasshop- 

 pers, and spiders. 



The value of the bird lies chiefly in the fact that barely 1 percent 

 of its food consists of grain, while more than 50 percent is made up of 

 weed seed. As it is one of the most abundant species, fairh- swarm- 

 ing in the hedge rows that skirt the fields, it is capable of rendering 

 considerable service to agriculture. 



CHIPPING SPARROW. 



(Spizella social is and Spizella s. arizonce.) 



The chipping sparrow breeds in every State in the Union (with 

 the possible exception of Florida), in Canada, and on the table-lands 

 of Mexico. Its breeding range includes four life zones, the Canadian, 

 Transition, and Upper and Lower Austral, but in autumn the gen- 

 eral migratory movement carries all the birds into the Lower Austral 

 and farther south — that is to say, into the Gulf States, Cuba, and 

 Mexico. 



This little red-capped bird, that often builds its horse hair-lined nest 

 in the vines of the porch, is one of the best known of the native spar- 

 rows. Its semi-domestic habits cause it to be a general favorite, 

 despite the fact that it is not gifted with pleasing vocal powers, but 

 utters only an incessant metallic chip, and a song that suggests the 

 note of a distant cicada. The eggs are a delicate robin's-egg blue 

 spotted at one end with black, which is exceptional, most sparrow eggs 

 having a whitish ground color overlaid with brownish markings. 

 The two broods of from three to five young reared each year consume 

 great quantities of caterpillars and grasshoppers. Dr. Clarence M. 

 Weed has seen a chipping sparrow carry 50 caterpillars to its young 

 in twelve hours. ^ 



In its own feeding the bird is a noted destroyer of different caterpil- 

 lars. Mr. E. H. Forbush speaks of its eating cankerworms and brown- 

 tail-moth, tent, and gipsy-moth caterpillars;^ Dr. B. H. Warren has 



1 Bull. No. 55, N. H. Coll. Agr. Expt. Sta., 1898. 



2 Mass. Crop Kept., Bull. 3, pp. 33-36, July, 1900. 



