The Chipping Sparrow 



By John James Audubon 



Few birds are more common throughout the United States than this gentle 

 and harmless little finch. It inhabits the towns, villages, orchards, gardens, bor- 

 ders of fields and prairie grounds. Abundant in the whole of the middle States 

 during spring, summer and autumn, it removes to the southern parts to spend 

 the winter, and there you may meet with it in flocks almost anywhere, even in the 

 open woods. 



So social is it in its character that you see it at that season in company with 

 the Song Sparrow, the White-throated, the Savannah and the Field Sparrows, and 

 almost every other species of the genus. The sandy roads exposed to the sun's 

 rays are daily visited by it. There, or among the tall grasses of our old fields, it 

 searches for food, seeking seeds, small berries and insects of various kinds. 

 Should the weather be cold it enters the barnyard, and even presents itself in the 

 piazza. It reaches Louisiana, the Carolinas and other southern districts in 

 November, and returns about the middle of ^larch to the middle and eastern 

 States where it breeds. 



Early in May the Chipping Sparrow has already formed its nest which it 

 has placed indifferently in the apple or peach tree of the orchard or garden, in any 

 evergreen bush or cedar, high or low, as it may best suit, but never on the ground. 

 It is small and comparatively slender, being formed of a scanty collection of fine 

 dried grass and lined with horse or cow hair. 



The eggs are four or five, of a bright greenish-blue color, slightly marked 

 with dark and light brown spots, chiefly distributed toward the larger end. They 

 are more pointed at the small end than is common in this genus. /Vlthough 

 timorous, these birds express great anxiety when their nest is disturbed, especially 

 the female. They generally raise two broods in the season south of Pennsylvania 

 and not unfrequently in Virginia and Maryland. 



The songs of this species, if song it can with propriety be called, is heard at 

 all hours of the day, the bird seeming determined to make up by quantity for 

 defect in the quality of its notes. Mounted on the topmost branch of any low tree 

 or bush, or on the end of a fence-stake, it emits with rapidity six or seven notes 

 resembling the sound produced by smartly striking two pebbles together, each 

 succeeding note rising in strength, although the song altogether is scarcely louder 

 than the chirping of a cricket. It is often heard during the calm of a fine night 

 or in the warmer days of winter. 



These gentle birds migrate by day, and no sooner has October returned and 

 mellowed the tints of the sylvan foliage than flitting before you on the road you 

 see family after family moving southward, chasing each other as if in play, sweep- 

 ing across the path or flocking suddenly to a tree if surprised, but almost 



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