32 THE RELATION OF 8PARBOW8 TO AGRICULTURE. 
bers and knot weed, and in the adjoining field they found the seed- of 
pigeon-grass, crab-grass, and paspalum. It was a common sight 
during early summer to see them hunting along the two rows of knot- 
weed in the road, and every now and then scratching in the sand for 
seeds, which they speedily devoured with apparent relish. One day, 
after a storm, I noticed a song sparrow searching and picking amid 
the black debris of vegetable matter left in the road by the water. I 
examined the debris and found in it several seeds of last season s 
Lamb's-quarters. 
Chipping sparrows hunt industriously through the same roadside 
vegetation, and some that were collected were found to have eaten 
weevils, grasshoppers, leaf-beetles, knotweed, oxalis, and chickweed. 
One bird that I watched with a telescope picked off some of the hun- 
dreds of midges resting upon a knotweed plant, and subsequently 
plucked caterpillars, leaf-hoppers, and ants from other plants. 
Chipping sparrows, unlike son,u - sparrows, are given to foraging out 
in plowed fields — a habit which increases their usefulness on the 
farm. Four of these birds were collected on .May l )( .» (1896) from the 
middle of a field newly plowed for tobacco. They had eaten largely 
of timothy seeds, and less freely of weevils, click-beetles, and two 
kinds of leaf- beetles (Odontota dorsal is and Chc&tocnema denticulata). 
Two years later this field was in hay, and although grasshopper 
sparrows bred in the high standing grass, chipping sparrows were 
nor seen there until the crop was harvested, when they spent much 
time hunting in the stubble. On one August day three chipping 
sparrows were noticed well out in the stubble, darting up into the air 
and catching winged ants (Solenopsis molesta), which floated over the 
field by millions. These insects have stings, spines, and formic acid, 
three of the devices supposed to repel birds: yet the three chipping 
sparrows secured 21 ants in 20 minutes, and several English sparrows 
and a score of bank swallows were also observed greedily devouring 
them. Some song sparrows came tip from the beach and ran a little 
way into the hay Stubble; and although they were not actually seen 
feeding on the ants, it seems probable that they also availed them- 
selves of this abundant and easily accessible fo >d supply. 
In the pear orchard a score of chipping sparrows were observed dur- 
ing the last week of August (1898) destroying the seeds of an abun- 
dant growth of crab-grass that was choking the truck crops among 
the pear trees. They were also eating the seeds of climbing bind- 
I. spotted spurge, purslane, and oxalis. The exact method of 
procuring the crab-grass seeds, still in the milk, was as follows: 
The birds hopped up to fruiting ^tnlks and, beginning at the tip 
of oi f th<- spikes, bit and chewed the seeds, gradually moving 
their beaks along to the base. Ou finishing one spike they imme- 
diately commenced upon another. Usually they did not remove their 
beaks until the base was reached, though some, especially birds of 
