CHIPPING SPARROW. 
335 
seldom so thick but that it may be readily seen through, is 
composed of dry stalks of withered grass, and lined more or 
less with horse or cow hair. The Cuckoo destroys many eggs 
of this timid, harmless, and sociable little bird, as the nests are 
readily discovered and numerous ; on such occasions the little 
sufferer expresses great and unusual anxiety for the security of 
her charge, and after being repeatedly robbed, the female sits 
closely sometimes upon perhaps only two eggs, desirous at any 
rate to escape if possible with some of her little offspring. Two 
or more broods are raised in the season. 
Towards the close of summer the parents and their brood 
are seen busily engaged collecting seeds and insects in the 
neighboring fields and lanes, and now become so numerous, as 
the autumn advances, that flitting before the path on either 
side as the passenger proceeds, they almost resemble the 
falling leaves of the season rustling before the cheerless blast ; 
and finally, as their food fails and the first snows begin to 
appear, advertised of the threatening famine, they disappear 
and winter in the Southern States. In the month of January,, 
in Georgia, during the continuance of the cool weather and 
frosty nights, I frequently heard at dusk a confused chirping or 
piping like that of frogs, and at length discovered the noise to 
proceed from dense flocks of the Chipping Sparrows roosting 
or huddling near together in a pile of thick brush, where, with 
the Song Sparrow also, they find means to pass the cool 
nights. The Chipping Sparrow occurs throughout the Mari- 
time Provinces and westward to the Rockies and northward to 
the Great Slave Lake region. It is abundant in Quebec and 
Ontario. 
Note. — One example of Brewer’s Sparrow (Spisella 
brsweri), a bird that dwells chiefly on the western slopes of the 
Rockies, has been taken in Massachusetts. 
