Tree Sparrow 
119 
a “good-bye.” No guests whom we ever had 
beneath our roof left a more aching void than 
that chipping sparrow family. How we hope 
they will find their way back to the boxwood 
tree from the Gulf States next April! 
TREE SPARROW 
Called also: Winter Chippy 
When the friendly little chippy leaves us in 
autumn, this similar but larger sparrow cousin 
comes into the United States from the North, 
and some people say they cannot tell the two 
birds apart or the field sparrow from either of 
them. The tree sparrow, which, unlike the 
chippy, has no black on his forehead, wears an 
indistinct black spot on the centre of his breast 
where the chippy is plain gray, and the field 
sparrow is buffy. The tree sparrow has a parti- 
coloured bill, the upper-half black, the lower 
yellow with a black tip, while the chippy has 
an entirely black bill, and the field sparrow a 
flesh-coloured or pale-red one. Only the tree 
sparrow, which is larger than either of the 
others, although only as large as a full grown 
English sparrow, spends the winter in the 
Northern United States, and by that time his 
confusing relatives are too far south for compar- 
ison. It is in spring and autumn that their 
