A Study of the Eastern Song Sparrow 
(Melospiza melodia melodia) 
By HENRY MOUSLEY 
Possibly the commoner the bird, the less likely will its home life 
be recorded. At all events, I never contemplated doing anything in 
this line with regard to the present very common species until July 
of the present year (1936), when by chance I found a nest in the mak- 
ing and decided to learn something of the bird’s home life. 
The nest was placed on the ground under a mass of cow vetch 
(Vicia cracca) and dead stalks of other plants and contained its full 
complement of four eggs on July 13. The young appeared twelve days 
later, on the 25th. One was dead, however, when I visited the nest 
again two days later. Not being familiar with the behaviour of spar- 
rows at the nest, I set up the camera—at some distance to begin with 
—in order to judge the temerity of the parents. It was well I did so, 
for even at that, it was some considerable time before either bird ven- 
tured near the nest, and then I think it was the male, judging from 
its apparent size and supposed darker markings. Of course in judging 
the sexes I had nothing really tangible to rely upon, since both are alike 
in plumage. The male is a trifle larger if anything, but relative size 
is hard to judge accurately in the field. Perhaps the best indication 
came later when the supposed male appeared to pounce down and 
follow up its mate apparently in an endeavor to drive her to the nest, 
she being by far the more timid of the two. Throughout this study, 
however, it will always remain an open question which of the two 
sexes was really the bolder. My ‘hideout’? was under a small poplar 
tree 60 feet from the nest. On this visit of three hours’ duration the 
young—which were three days old-—were fed once every eleven min- 
utes. The parents towards the close of the sitting had become quite 
reconciled to the camera, so I decided when I next visited the site two 
days later to set it up much closer to the nest and try to obtain some 
better and larger pictures of the parents. In this I was most fortunate. 
The parents fed the young during the three hours I was. at the nest 
at the rate of once every eight minutes. The young were then five 
days old, with their eyes well open. One picture (Fig. 1) shows both 
parents at the nest at the same time, one in the act of cleaning it, with 
the little white fecal sac in its mouth, the other alongside of its mate 
and apparently merely looking on. The latter must have appeared just 
as I pulled the release, as I was not aware of its presence, and in con- 
sequence the bird is somewhat blurred. This occasion and one other 
(of which I was unable to secure a picture) were the only times in 
which the parents were seen at the nest together. After the feeding 
of the young the male often sang in a somewhat low key at short inter- 
vals, not in the least resembling the full song of early spring and sum- 
mer. The rather long tail of the Song Sparrow seems quite a knotty 
problem to its owner, for even in flight the bird keeps bobbing it up 
24 
