121 



FIELD SPARROW. 

 FRINGILLA PUSILLA. 

 [Plate XVI.— Fig. 2.] 



Passer agrestis, Bartram, j&. 291. — Peale's Museum, JVo, 6560. 



THIS is the smallest of all our Sparrows, and in Pennsylvania 

 is generally migratory. It arrives early in April, frequents dry 

 fields covered with long grass, builds a small nest on the ground, 

 generally at the foot of a briar, lines it with horse hair ; lays six 

 eggs so thickly sprinkled with ferruginous as to appear altogether 

 of that tint; and raises two, and often three, brood in a season. It 

 is more frequently found in the middle of fields and orchards than 

 any of the other species, which usually lurk along hedge rows. It 

 has no song; but a kind of chirrupping not much different from the 

 chirpings of a cricket. Towards Fall they assemble in loose flocks 

 in orchards and corn-fields, in search of the seeds of various rank 

 weeds ; and are then very numerous. As the weather becomes se- 

 vere, with deep snow, they disappear. In the lower parts of North 

 and South Carolina I found this species in multitudes in the months 

 of January and February. When disturbed they take to the bushes, 

 clustering so close together that a dozen may easily be shot at a 

 time. I continued to see them equally numerous thro the whole 

 lower parts of Georgia ; from whence, according to Mr. Abbot, they 

 all disappear early in the spring. 



None of our birds have been more imperfectly described than 

 that family of the Finch tribe usually called Sparrows. They have 

 been considered as too insignificant for particular notice, yet they 

 possess distinct characters, and some of them peculiarities, well 



VOL. II. H h 



