FOX SPARROW. < s < 
SWAMP SPARROW. 
(Melospiza georgiana.) 
The swamp sparrow breeds from southern New York, northern 
[ilinois, and the Dakotas north to Manitoba, Labrador, and New- 
foundland, and winters from southern New England, southern Illi- 
nois, and Kansas to the Gulf. It is distinguishable from the song 
sparrow by its unstreaked breast and brick-red crown. It is a timid 
bird and never abandons the tussocks and reeds of the marsh to come 
up to the shrubbery of the lawn or dooryard. Nor does it often leave 
its swamp to forage on cultivated land, a characteristic which makes 
it of less economic importance than many of our sparrows. Such 
species, if they figure at all in rural economy, act simply as a check 
on certain insects which might otherwise become abundant and spread 
from the swamp to farm lands. 
The food from February to November, exclusive of March, as indi- 
cated by the examination of 72 stomachs, principally from Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania, is divided as 
follows: Animal matter, 47 percent, nearly all insects; and vegetable 
matter, 53 percent, almost entirely seeds. An interesting fact in con- 
nection with the feeding habits was brought out in the study of a 
caged bird. It showed an aversion to picking up seeds from its seed 
cup, preferring to take them from the surface of its drinking vessel. 
This suggests the idea that it is possible that the bird was accustomed, 
in its swampy home, to gather seeds from the water, though it may 
be that it merely preferred wet seeds to dry, on account of having 
been used to seeds that were moist from contact with the damp ground. 
The swamp sparrow takes more seeds of polygonums than most birds, 
and eats largely of the seeds of the sedges and aquatic panicums that 
abound in its swampy habitat. The giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifida) 
is also well represented in its stomach contents. 
Of the insect food (45 percent of the total) grasshoppers, etc. , amount 
to 2 percent; parasitic and predaceous insects to 6 percent; cater- 
pillars, etc., to percent; and leaf-beetles and weevils to 11 percent. 
The remaining 17 percent consists of bugs (Heteroptera and Homop- 
tera), ants (Formicina), flies (Diptera), and the smaller dung-beetles. 
The bird shows a marked taste for ants, one-seventh of the stomachs 
examined containing these insects, especially those of the family 
Myrmicida?. Although many of the insects eaten by the swamp spar- 
row belong to families generally classed as injurious or beneficial, 
yet the particular species taken are mainly such as inhabit only 
swamps, and so have very little, if any, economic value. 
FOX SPARROW. 
{Passer ella iliaca.) 
The fox sparrow (see frontispiece) is one of the birds that character- 
ize the Iludsonian life zone — that is to say, it is found breeding in 
