80 THE RELATION OF SPARROWS TO AGRICULTURE. 
The amount of grain taken during most of the year is about 4 
percent, bu1 in August the bird visits oat stubble and feeds on oats, 
often to the extent of a quarter of its diet. The chipping sparrow 
lias the same habit. Apparently no such predilection exists in the 
case of wheat. During the Last week in June a dozen sparrows of 
botli these species were collected in a wheat field at harvest time. 
They were, however, not eating wheal, bul were feeding on insects 
and weed seed. Some of the oats that are found in the stomachs are 
obtained from horse droppings. This is particularly true in the case 
of the chipping sparrow, a species which is often found foraging along 
roadsides. 
Both of these sparrows feed very little on any seeds other than 
those of grasses, in which propensity they are like the tree and lark 
sparrows. They subsist less on ragweed than any other species of 
upland sparrows, and take comparatively little lamb's-quarters or 
amaranth, but at times show a marked liking for wood-sorrel, chick- 
weed, purslane, or some of the smaller-seeded species of polygonums. 
Both of these birds are abundant and useful tenants of the farm, 
but comparison shows the chipping sparrow to have the more favor- 
able food habits. It destroys fewer beneficial insects and more pests 
than its congener. 
JUNCO. 
(Junco hyemalix and subspecies.) 
The junco (see frontispiece), unlike the chipping and field sparrows, 
is not a summer but a winter bird so far as most of the agricultural 
districts of our country are concerned. It is a bird of the Canadian 
and upper Transition life zones, and hence breeds principally in the 
mountains or near the Canadian border. In winter it migrates south, 
spreads over the whole of the United States — though less abundant in 
the northern portions — and ranges as far south as Mexico. 
The best -known junco is the slate-colored, familiarly known as the 
snowbird, or sometimes black snowbird, in contradistinction to the 
snowflake of tin 4 Northern States. It comes from the north with 
the first frost, and is as definitely associated with the beginning of 
cold weather as the robin is with the first breath of spring. In its 
winter home the bird is very friendly and hops up to the doorstep 
for crumbs with the same engaging confidence manifested by the 
chipping sparrow in summer. Bui should the expected crumbs be 
wanting, it is not disturbed. With a sharp chirp sounding like the 
click of two marbles against each other it is off to the weed patches; 
or to the barn if the weeds are buried under the snow. From the 
haymow it can procure food, even though the snow be fence deep; 
and at such times, or during blizzards, a few meals of hayseed are 
DOl distasteful to it. lint as soon as its forced retirement is con- 
cluded— that is, when tlie inclemencies thai drove it to shelter have 
