SPECIES 6. FRINGILLA SOCMLIS. 
CHIPPING SPARROW. 
[Plate XVI. — Fig. 5.] 
Passer domesticus, the little House Sparrow, or Chipping-bird, 
Bartram, p. £91. — Peale’s Museum, JVb, 6571. 
This species, though destitute of the musical talents of the 
former, is perhaps more generally known, because more fami- 
liar and even domestic. He inhabits, during summer, the city, 
in common with man, building in the branches of the trees 
with which our streets and gardens are ornamented j and glean- 
ing up crumbs from our yards, and even our doors, to feed his 
more advanced young with.- I have known one of these birds 
attend regularly every day, during a whole summer, while the 
family were at dinner, under a piazza, fronting the garden, and 
pick up the crumbs that were thrown to him. This sociable 
habit, which continues chiefly during the summer, is a singu- 
lar characteristic. Towards the end of summer he takes to the 
fields, and hedges, until the weather becomes severe, with snow, 
when he departs for the south. 
The Chipping-bird builds his nest most commonly in a cedar 
bush, and lines it thickly with cow-hair. The female lays four 
or five eggs of a light blue colour, with a few dots of purplish 
black near the great end. 
This species may easily be distinguished from the four pre- 
ceding ones, by his black bill and frontier and by his famili- 
arity in summer; yet, in the month of August and September, 
when they moult, the black on the front and partially on the bill 
disappears. The young are also without the black during the 
first season. 
