BIRDS OF DURHAM AND VICINITY. 
73 
January, where they were evidently wintering. They pass northward 
in March and April. I have never seen them take other food than 
the seeds of the coarse grass which grows on the sand-hills. 
Ammodramns sandwichensis savanna. Savanna 
Sparrow. 542a. 
In this region I usually find Savanna Sparrows spending the spring 
and summer on the brackish marshes adjacent to the Piscataqua and 
its tributaries and also on the sand-hills by the sea. While migrating 
they frequent fields where ragweed abounds. I have heard them 
singing their unmusical notes in the Oyster river thatch beds on the 
eighteenth of April, and liave found them plentiful in fields on the 
twenty-seventh of October. In its ways and general appearance the 
Savanna resembles the Vesper Sparrow. Both are skulkers, prefer- 
ring to run out of sight, instead of flying, unless they are approached 
too closely. The Savanna, however, has no white feathers in its tail, 
and the yellow line running from- its bill back over each eye, when 
coupled with the distinctly spotted breast, enables a person to identify 
it after a little patient scrutiny. 
Ammodramns savannarnm passerinus. Grasshop- 
per Sparrow. 546. 
The Yellow-winged or Grasshopper Sparrow is very locahy dis- 
tributed, and nowhere common. It is not a " brush *' sparrow, pre- 
ferring on the contrary open fields or pastures, where there is now and 
then an evening primrose or mullein stalk for it to perch on and 
deliver its stridulent apology for a song, which has earned for it the 
name Grasshopper Sparrow. The only trace of this sparrow that I 
have found here is a mounted specimen in the collection of Mr. George 
H. Yeaton of Rollinsford, who occasionally finds it near his home. 
Ammodramns candacntns. Sharp-tailed Sparrow. 549. 
Sharp-tailed Sparrows are common on the tide-water marshes. I 
have found them abundant at Hampton during the summer, and as 
late as the fourteenth of October. They are rather difficult birds to 
study alive, for the reason that they secrete themselves in the tall grass 
when approached, and lie very low till everything is quiet. 
Zonotrichia lencophrys. White-crowned Sparrow. 554. 
This plainly dressed, yet handsome sparrow is one of our less com- 
mon species, but it is not so rare as many suppose, for the reason that 
it loves the seclusion of shrubbery and thus frequently escapes notice. 
