SPARRnWS Oi THE FIELD. 35 
orchard, roadside, and far out in ploughed land and stubble-fields; 
song sparrows frequent gully, thicket, bluff, and river shore, and 
make forays into garden and field; held sparrows are found in waste 
land and cornfield, and at times in garden and hayfield, and vesper 
and grasshopper sparrows far afield in the midst of grass and other 
crops. Each renders important service, and all together, by supple- 
menting one another, are of very great value to the farmer. 
In their regular feeding habits sparrows and other birds are con- 
stantly engaged in keeping the flood of insect life within bounds, 
each, as here shown, having its own separate field of work; but 
when, as sometimes happens, any particular kind of insect overflows 
its usual limits and threatens to disturb the normal distribution, all 
the birds often seem to abandon temporarily their < c -ustomed fields 
and unite in overcoming the invasion. Two instances of this kind 
came under observation on the Marshall Hall farm. In 1895 the 
locust leaf-mining beetles (Odontota dorsalis) became overabundant 
and turned the beautiful green of the locusts fringing the bluff into 
an unsightly brown. All the birds, including the sparrows, ate thet-e 
beetles freely and constantly, and largely aided, by their united 
attack, in reducing the beetles in number to such an extent that they 
have not appeared subsequently in sufficient force to repeat the dam- 
age. Again, during May, 1899, the May-flies, which emerged from the 
river, became a plague, alighting upon the farm buildings and literally 
covering them, frightening the horses, annoying the workmen, and 
infesting the farmhouse in such swarms that it was well-nigh unin- 
habitable. Practically all the birds of the farm fed on them, and 
in a large measure reared their young upon them, and by this means 
reduced tnem to their normal level. May-flies do not ordinarily 
become obnoxiously abundant, but when they do even their function 
in furnishing subsistence to valuable food fishes does not save them 
from being ranked as pests, the destruction of which is beneficial. 
In order to study the feeding habits of sparrows during cool 
weather, the Marshall Hall farm was visited in the middle of Novem- 
ber. 1809, when heavy frosts whitened the ground every morning. 
The chipping sparrows and grasshopper sparrows had left for warmer 
latitudes, but. in their places were throngs of tree sparrows, white- 
throated sparrows, j uncos, and fox sparrows, which had come down 
from the north. A few savanna sparrows were also noted. Field 
sparrows were present in fully as large numbers as they had been 
during the breeding season, while song sparrows appeared even 
more abundant. The sparrow family, as a whole, was several times 
more numerous than it had been during the summer. 
The several species were extremely shy. and nearly all kept very 
close to cover, in marked contrast with their comparative indifference 
dnring the breeding season. Hedgerows or other shelter seemed 
usually essential to their presence, and but for the bushy ditch and 
