76 
BIRDS OF DURHAM AND VICINITY. 
here as late as the first of May. They breed on mountains all over this 
state, and I should expect to find them in summer not farther away 
than the Blue Hills in Strafford. They are eminently social and may 
be found in flocks, even in the breeding season, on their chosen sum- 
mits. I have seen three " sports"' of this species, all similar, having 
heads and necks partly white. 
Melospiza melodia. Song Sparrow. 581. 
The Song Sparrow is our most abundant summer resident. It 
comes early and goes late, keeping very close to the limits of winter. 
They are here in March as soon as there is a relaxation of cold 
weather, and sing fervently in spite of their dismal surroundings. I 
have known them to be here on the eleventh, and again they have not 
shown themselves till the twenty-fourth of that month, when the 
weather has been unfavorable. The}' follow the coast in their miojra- 
tions, and are to be found near the ocean much longer than elsewhere 
in this latitude. Indeed, I should not be at all surprised to find them 
wintering in some sheltered run at Hampton. I have found them in 
winter at Plymouth, Mass., in considerable numbers. Their latest 
fall occurrence that I have noted here is November 30, which is more 
than a month after they cease to be common. Song Sparrows live 
on moist land, and a majority are found in close proximity to water. 
Every run, fresh or brackish, harbors them, and the same is true of 
swamps and meadows. Though they usually build their nests on the 
ground, when there is a wet season and the meadows they inhabit 
are inundated, instead of going to higher ground, they simply take to 
the bushes and build their nests there, high and dry. The name of 
this sparrow was advisedly chosen, for excepting the Fox Sparrow, 
whose voice is but rarely heard in this latitude, its song is unexcelled 
in the kingdom of New England sparrows, and no other prolongs its 
singing season to any such extent. 
Melospiza lincolnii. Linxolns Sparrow. 583. 
Lincoln's is the rarest sparrow that regularly migrates through this 
territory. I have a single specimen, the only one I ever saw alive, 
which I found in a young growth of deciduous trees in Newmarket, 
near Great Bay, on the thirteenth of .A lay. It was hopping about on 
the ground, and on first sight I took it to be a Song Sparrow — the 
two species look almost precisely alike on the back — but a view of its 
breast revealed its identity. Its breast has a tinge of buff, and is but 
