356 
FINCHES, SPARROWS, ETC. 
6. Wing (male) 2.49-2.84; bill stouter. Atlantic watershed. 
melodia, p. 356. 
6'. Wing (male) 2.58-2.91; bill more slender. Rocky Mountain 
plateau.montana, p. 357. 
5'. Interscapulars without distinct brown streaks. 
6. Larger; wing (male) 2.45-2.60. San Clemente, San Miguel, 
and Santa Rosa Islands, California . clementae, p. 359. 
6'. Smaller; wing (male) 2.29-2.41. Santa Barbara and Santa 
Cruz Islands, California. graminea, p. 358. 
581. Melospiza melodia (Wilson). Song Sparrow. 
Adults. — Crown brown, narrowly streaked with black and with a nar¬ 
row gray median stripe ; scapulars and interscapulars streaked with black ; 
wings and tail brown; middle and greater wing coverts 
brown, edged with lighter ; middle tail feathers with 
blackish shaft streaks; superciliary olive gray; malar 
stripe dull white or pale buffy; under parts white; chest 
with wedge-shaped streaks of black edged with rusty 
brown, forming an irregular median spot; sides and 
flanks streaked with black and rusty brown. Young: 
like adults, but Avithout gray on upper parts ; ground 
color of back and scapulars buffy brownish or dull buffy; 
under parts duller white, often quite buffy, with the streaks narrower, 
less distinct. Male: length (skins) 5.30-6.48, wing 2.49-2.84, tail 2.44- 
2.79, bill .45-52. Female: length (skins) 5.15-6.10, wing 2.42-2.81, tail 
2.19-2.77, bill .45-.51. 
Remarks. — In summer the colors are grayer and streaks on chest nar¬ 
rower, sometimes with brown edgings worn off; in winter the general 
coloration is browner, the brown more rusty, the gray more buffy. 
Distribution. — Eastern United States west to the Rocky Mountains, 
north to Norway House, Lake Winnipeg. 
Nest. — In low bushes or on the ground, made chiefly of grasses lined 
with slender stems. Eggs: 4 or 5, dull greenish white, spotted with red¬ 
dish brown, sometimes concealing ground color. 
Food. — Mainly injurious insects and weed seed. 
As his name denotes, the song sparrow is one of the most tuneful 
of the sparrow family. He is not a great or showy musician, hut a 
singer of songs, plain every-day home songs with the heart left in 
them. His content and good cheer are so contagious that you wel¬ 
come his voice wherever you hear it. And you may hear it in every 
state of the Union, for, under whatever name he is known, he is a 
song sparrow still. 
At Neah Bay, Washington, where the rainfall reaches the maxi¬ 
mum for the United States, and the vegetation is dense and the soil 
dark, we find him almost sable brown, but on the deserts of the 
southwest his colors are pale sandy to match the light open ground. 
Indeed, his coat is so sensitive to slight changes of environment 
that he is a sore problem to makers of subspecies. But whatever 
trouble he unwittingly makes in the ornithological world, he is the 
same quiet, gentle bird, sunning himself in the bushes, running over 
the ground when attending to his affairs with wings close at his sides 
