342 



SA V ANN AH SPARROW. 



rally keep by themselves. Their manners very much resemble 

 those of the red-eyed bunting (Plate X. fig, 4) ; they are 

 silent, tame, and unsuspicious. They have generally no other 

 note while here than a sJi&p, shep ; yet I suspect they have 

 some song in the places where they breed ; for I once heard 

 a single one, a little before the time they leave us, warble 

 out a few very sweet low notes. 



The fox-coloured sparrow is six inches long, and nine and 

 a quarter broad; the upper part of the head and neck is 

 cinereous, edged with rust colour ; back, handsomely mottled 

 with reddish brown, and cinereous ; wings and tail, bright 

 ferruginous ; the primaries, dusky within and at the tips, the 

 first and second row of coverts, tipt with white ; breast and 

 belly, white ; the former, as well as the ear-feathers, marked 

 with large blotches of bright bay or reddish brown, and the 

 beginning of the belly with little arrow-shaped spots of black ; 

 the tail-coverts and tail are a bright fox colour ; the legs and 

 feet, a dirty brownish white or clay colour, and very strong ; 

 the bill is strong, dusky above and yellow below ; iris of the 

 eye, hazel. The chief difference in the female is, that the 

 wings are not of so bright a bay, inclining more to a drab ; 

 yet this is scarcely observable, unless by a comparison of the 

 two together. They are generally very fat, live on grass 

 seeds, eggs of insects, and gravel. 



SAVANNAH SPAKEOW. (Fringilla savanna) 



PLATE XXII.— Fig. 3, Female.* 



Peale's Museum, No. 6584. 



ZONOTRICHIA SAVANNA.- J akdine. 



Fringilla savanna, Bonap. Synop. p. 108. 



This new species is an inhabitant of the low countries on the 

 Atlantic coast, from Savannah, where I first discovered it, 



* The male is figured Vol. II. Plate XXXIV. 



