74 
BIRDS OF DURHAM AND VICINITY. 
It is a migrant here, coming from the south the first week in May, 
and leaving for the north the last week of the same month. In autumn 
I have not recorded their presence earlier than the twenty-ninth of 
September, nor later than the tenth of October. Young fall birds do 
not have the black and white crown of adults, but instead, the entire 
crown is reddish brown with just a suggestion of a light stripe along 
the median line. The song of this sparrow is rarely heard here. In 
the spring of 1900, in common with other birds, they remained in 
unusual numbers for nearly two weeks. From the thirteenth to the 
twentieth of May they were actually numerous, and I heard them sing 
repeatedly. The song began with a whistle as pure in tone as the 
notes of the White-throated Sparrow, and ended with a vocal dimin- 
uendo quite similar to the corresponding portion of the Vesper Spar- 
row's song. 
Zonotricliia albicollis. White-throated SrARRow\ 558. 
White-throated Sparrows, like the last species, are only migrants 
here, although they breed at no great distance toward the more elevated 
portions of the state. I have noted them here from the twenty-third 
of April till the tenth of May, and from the twenty-third of September 
till the nineteenth of October. The White-throat's song is a clear, 
mellow whistle, very agreeable to hear, and it is a pity that he sings 
so little as he passes. In the examination of a stomach from a spec- 
imen taken early in May I was able to identify besides some grains of 
sand, a scarab^ieid beetle, and a polygonum seed, which had been inad- 
vertently swallowed without being hulled. I have seen them partake 
of the berries of the- black-berried elder i^Sainbiiciis canadensis^ in 
October. I have noticed what I do not remember to have seen 
reported about this sparrow, namely, that when on hard, smooth 
ground it lualks with almost the gravity of a blackbird, while gather- 
ing seeds from underfoot; but when in a hurry, or on grass land, it 
hops. 
Spizella monticola. Tree Sparrow. "559- 
Tree Sparrows come from the north every, autumn between the 
twentieth and the thirtieth of October — one year their first appearance 
was on the twenty-second, and twice it has been on the twenty-ninth. 
The majority are gone southward by the middle of November, but 
there are always more or less of them to be found all winter. By the 
first week in April the northward movement is begun, and the last 
one disappears between the fifteenth and twentieth of that month. It 
