SPARROWS 
407 
Along the coast of Alaska, eastward to the point of the Aleutian Islands chain, a 
number of forms are distributed. These, reading westward, are: the Yukutat Song 
Sparrow (le Pinson chanteur de Yukutat) Melospiza melodia caurina; The Kenai Song 
Sparrow (le Pinson chanteur de Kenai) Melospiza melodia kenaiensis ; Bischoff’s Song 
Sparrow (le Pinson chanteur de Bischoff) Melospiza melodia insignis, and the Aleutian 
Song Sparrow (le Pinson chanteur aleoutienne) Melospiza melodia sanaka. These have 
the browns of the back generally greyer than the preceding races, and are separated from 
each other by small distinctions. They progressively increase in size until, in the Aleutian 
Song Sparrow, we find a bird comparatively huge for a Song Sparrow, that approaches the 
Fox Sparrow in measurement. Some of these may be expected along the British Columbia 
coast in migration, but though extremes are marked, the distinctions between adjoining 
races are too slight to be briefly defined here or to be recognized without an ample series 
for comparison. 
It is difficult to form a just and unprejudiced estimate of the standing 
of the Song Sparrow in the avian chorus. Its little medley of chirps and 
trills makes a sustained song of some duration and to those who listen 
to it sympathetically it has a gladness, brightness, and sweetness of tone 
that are difficult to surpass. The bird is almost omnipresent. It lives in 
the shrubbery close about the house and is one of the familiar birds of the 
garden. It haunts the thickets on the edge of the wood-lot or bordering 
rivulets. The deep woods and the clean, open fields are the only places 
where it is generally absent, and even there it sometimes surprises us with 
a burst of liquid song. 
Economic Status. The great numbers of the Song Sparrow render it 
most important to the agriculturist. An analysis of its food shows that 
only 2 per cent is composed of useful insects and 18 per cent of harmful 
ones. Waste grain constitutes 4 per cent and weed seeds 50 per cent. 
The remainder is composed of wild fruit and other unimportant material. 
It is seen from this that the Song Sparrow is of considerable economic 
importance. Investigation has shown that one-quarter of an ounce of 
weed seed a day is a fair estimate of the amount consumed by a seed- 
eating sparrow. During the nine months the Song Sparrow is with us in 
the average Canadian locality the consumption amounts to four and a 
quarter pounds an individual a year. Allowing seventy-five Song Sparrows 
a square mile as a very conservative estimate of population, we get a total 
for the southern cultivated parts of Ontario of over eleven thousand tons 
of weed seeds destroyed annually by this one species; other sections are 
probably in proportion. 
539. McCown’s Longspur. le bruant a collier gris. Rhynchophanes mccowni. 
L, 6 0. Spring male: streaked in ashy ochre and brown above, and a black cap; under- 
parts, throat, and face, white with a black streak from corner of bill, and a black crescentic 
gorget across breast. White of throat extending around back of neck in a grey collar, and 
ear-coverts ashy grey (Figure 486). Lesser wing-coverts chestnut. Female generally 
Figure 485 
Tail of McCown’s Long- 
spur; scale, L 
Figure 486 
McCown’s Longspur; 
scale, 
