FOX-COLOURED SPARROW. 
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they breed: for I once heard a single one, a little before the 
time they leave us, warble out a few very sweet low notes. 
The Fox-coloured Sparrow is six inches long, and nine and 
a quarter broad; the upper part of the head and neck is cinereous, 
edged with rust colour; back handsomely mottled with reddish 
brown and cinereous; wings and tail bright ferruginous; the pri- 
maries dusky within and at the tips, the first and second rows 
of coverts, tipt with white; breast and belly white; the former, 
as well as the ear feathers, marked with large blotches of bright 
bay, or reddish brown, and the beginning of the belly with 
little arrow-shaped spots of black; the tail coverts and tail are a 
bright fox colour; the legs and feet a dirty brownish white, or 
clay colour, and very strong; the bill is strong, dusky above 
and yellow below; iris of tbe eye hazel. The chief difference 
in the female is that the wings are not of so bright a bay, in- 
clining more to a drab; yet this is scarcely observable, unless 
by a comparison of the two together. They are generally very 
fat, live on grass seeds, eggs of insects, and gravel. 
