SONG SPARROW. 83 



the barnyard for hayseed. It seeks its food on the ground, running 

 in a peculiar mouse-like way through grass or weeds. 



Its food, as indicated hj^ the examination of 401 stomachs from 26 

 States and British Columbia, collected during everj^ month in the year, 

 consists of animal matter, insects with occasionallj' a spider or snail, 

 o4 percent; and vegetable matter, mostl.y seeds, 66 percent. That the 

 bird haunts damp localities is well shown by certain articles of its 

 food, such as wild rice, sedge, smartweed, tall smooth panicum (Pani- 

 cum virgafuni), and spreading panicum {Panicum proliferum), sand- 

 fleas, aquatic snails, tiger-beetles, May-flies, and dragon-flies. But it 

 often leaves its favorite resort, along water courses, and seeks its food 

 on the uplands with other species of sparrows, feeding on woodbine 

 berries with white-throated sparrows, picking up seeds of crab-grass 

 and ragweed in company with juncos and tree sparrows, devouring 

 earthworms on the lawn with the robin, and even fighting with Eng- 

 lish sparrows for its share of bread crumbs upon the city street. 

 When raspberries are ripe it will once in a while assist the catbird 

 and brown thrasher in removing some of the choicest and most 

 luscious. In Mar3'land it has a habit of hunting round wheat-straw 

 ricks for grain that has not been entirely threshed out. Still, taken 

 as a whole, the food habits of this popular cheery- voiced sparrow are 

 not very different from those of a number of other species. 



Of the vegetable portion (66 percent) of the year's food, 3 i)ercent 

 consists of ragweed, 5 percent of grain, 16 percent of polygonum and 

 related seeds, 24 percent of grass seed, and 18 percent of miscella- 

 neous seeds, such as those of wild sunflower, amaranth, lamb's-quar- 

 ters, clover, gromwell, rib-grass, wild solanum, purslane, spurge, 

 wood sorrel, dandelion, chickweed, dock, and sheep-sorrel. The last 

 two are seldom eaten hy most other birds. ^Eore polygonum seed is 

 taken \)j the song sparrow than by Siuy other sparrow, largely because 

 most polygonums grow in moist places where song sparrows are often 

 very abundant. Several species of polj'gonums are weed pests on 

 low ground, and much good is done by the systematic destruction of 

 their seeds by the song sparrow during every month in the year. More 

 than half the grass-seed food belongs to such troublesome species as 

 crab-grass and pigeon-grass. The bird is so numerous that it must 

 destroy large quantities of these weeds. The seeds of other grasses, 

 such as timothy, paspalum, old-witch grass, barnyard grass, tall 

 smooth i^anicum, spreading paaicum, "beard-grass {Andropogon), 

 orchard grass, sheathed rush-grass, yard-grass, wild rye, Avild rice, and 

 others form about 8 percent of the food. 



The song sparrow, like the white-throated, white-crowned, and 

 fox sparrows, manifests a taste for fruit, especially during July, when 

 blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, mulberries, and 

 wild black cherries are eaten to tlie extent of nearly 8 percent of the 

 food. This diet is largely abandoned when the weed -seed harvest is 



