FOX SPARROW. 87 



SWAMP SPARROW. 



{3Ielos2nza yeorgiana. ) 



The swamp sparrow breeds from southern New York, northern 

 Illinois, and the Dakotas north to Manitoba, Labrador, and New- 

 foundland, and winters from southern New England, southern Illi- 

 nois, and Kansas to the Gulf. It is distinguishable from the song 

 sparrow by its unstreaked breast and brick-red crown. It is a timid 

 bird and never abandons the tussocks and reeds of the marsh to come 

 up to the shrubbery of the lawn or dooryard. Nor does it often leave 

 its swamp to forage on cultivated land, a characteristic which makes 

 it of less economic importance than many of our sparrows. Such 

 species, if they figure at all in rural economy, act simply as a check 

 on certain insects which might otherwise become abundant and spread 

 from the swamp to farm lands. 



The food from Februar}^ to November, exclusive of March, as indi- 

 cated by the examination of 72 stomachs, principally from Massa- 

 chusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania, is divided as 

 follows: Animal matter, 47 percent, nearly all insects; and vegetable 

 matter, 53 percent, almost entirely seeds. An interesting fact in con- 

 nection with the feeding habits was brought out in the stud}' of a 

 caged bird. It showed an aversion to picking up seeds from its seed 

 cup, preferring to take them from the surface of its drinking vessel. 

 This suggests the idea that it is possible that the bird was accustomed, 

 in its swampy home, to gather seeds from the water, though it may 

 be that it merely jn^eferred wet seeds to drj^, on account of having 

 been used to seeds that were moist from contact with the damp ground. 

 The swamp sparrow takes more seeds of polygonums than most birds, 

 and eats largely of the seeds of the sedges and aquatic panicums that 

 abound in its swamfjy habitat. The giant ragweed {Ambrosia frifida) 

 is also well represented in its stomach contents. 



Of the insect food (45 percent of the total) grasshoppers, etc. , amount 

 to 2 percent; parasitic and predaceous insects to 6 percent; cater- 

 pillars, etc., to 9 percent; and leaf-beetles and weevils to 11 percent. 

 The remaining 17 percent consists of bugs (Heteroptera and Homop- 

 tera), ants (Formicina), flies (Diptera), and the smaller dung-beetles. 

 The bird shows a marked taste for ants, one-seventh of the stomachs 

 examined containing these insects, especially those of the family 

 Myrmicidse. Although many of the insects eaten by the swamp spar- 

 row belong to families generally classed as injurious or beneficial, 

 yet the particular species taken are mainly such as inhabit only 

 swamps, and so have very little, if any, economic value. 



FOX SPARROW. 



{Passerella iliaca,) 



The fox sparrow (see frontispiece) is one of the birds that character- 

 ize the Iludsonian life zone — that is to say, it is found breeding in 



