A History of North American Birds, Land Birds. Volume 2. Robert Ridgway

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      Habits. The common Song Sparrow of eastern North America has an extended range of distribution, and is resident throughout the year in a large part of the area in which it breeds. It nests from about South Carolina north to the British Provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick at the east, and to a not well-defined limit in British America. The most northern points to which it has been traced are the plains of the Saskatchewan and the southern shore of Lake Winnepeg, in which latter place Mr. Kennicott found it breeding. It is said by Dr. Coues to breed in South Carolina, and by Mr. Audubon in Louisiana, but I have never seen any of their eggs from any point south of Washington. In winter it is found from Massachusetts, where only a few are observed, to Florida. It is most abundant at this period in North and South Carolina. It is not mentioned in Dr. Gerhardt’s list as being found in Northern Georgia at any season of the year. Mr. Ridgway informs me that it does not breed in Southern Illinois. Its song is not popularly known there, though he has occasionally heard it just before these Sparrows were leaving for the north. This species winters there in company with the Z. albicollis and Z. leucophrys, associating with the former, and inhabiting brush-heaps in the clearings.

      To Massachusetts, where specimens have been taken in every month of the year, and where they have been heard to sing in January, they return in large numbers usually early in March, sometimes even in February. It is probable that these are but migrants, passing farther north, and that our summer visitants do not appear among us until the middle of April, or just as they are about to breed. They reach Maine from the 15th to the 25th, and breed there the middle of May. In Massachusetts they do not have eggs until the first week in May, except in very remarkable seasons, usually not until after the Bluebird has already hatched out her first brood, and a week later than the Robin.

      The tide of returning emigration begins to set southward early in October. Collecting in small loose flocks, probably all of each group members of the same family, they slowly move towards the south. As one set passes on, another succeeds, until the latter part of November, when we no longer meet with flocks, but solitary individuals or groups of two or three. These are usually a larger and stouter race, and almost suggest a different species. They are often in song even into December. They apparently do not go far, and are the first to return. In early March they are in full song, and their notes seem louder, clearer, and more vibratory than those that come to us and remain to breed.

      The Song Sparrow, as its name implies, is one of our most noted and conspicuous singers. It is at once our earliest and our latest, as also our most constant musician. Its song is somewhat brief, but is repeated at short intervals, almost throughout the days of spring and early summer. It somewhat resembles the opening notes of the Canary, and though less resonant and powerful, much surpasses them in sweetness and expression. Plain and homely as this bird is in its outward garb, its sweet song and its gentle confiding manners render it a welcome visitor to every garden, and around every rural home wherein such attractions can be appreciated. Whenever these birds are kindly treated they readily make friends, and are attracted to our doorsteps for the welcome crumbs that are thrown to them; and they will return, year after year, to the same locality, whenever thus encouraged.

      The song of this Sparrow varies in different individuals, and often changes, in the same bird, in different parts of the year. It is even stated by an observing naturalist—Mr. Charles S. Paine, of Randolph, Vt.—that he has known the same bird to sing, in succession, nine entirely different sets of notes, usually uttering them one after the other, in the same order. This was noticed not merely once or during one season, but through three successive summers. The same bird returned each season to his grounds, and came each time provided with the same variety of airs.

      Mr. Nuttall, who dwells with much force upon the beauty and earnestness of expression of the song of this species, has also noticed and remarked upon the power of individuals to vary their song, from time to time, with very agreeable effect, but no one has recorded so remarkable an instance as that thus carefully noted by Mr. Paine.

      These birds are found in almost any cultivated locality where the grounds are sufficiently open. They prefer the edges of open fields, and those of meadows and low grounds, but are rarely found in woods or in thick bushes, except near their outer edges. They nest naturally on the ground, and in such situations a large majority build their nests. These are usually the younger birds. A portion, almost always birds of several summers, probably taught by sad experiences of the insecurity of the ground, build in bushes. A pair which had a nest in an adjoining field had been robbed, by a cat, of their young when just about to fly. After much lamentation, and an interval of a week, I found this same pair, which I easily recognized, building their nest among some vines near my house, some eight feet from the ground. They had abandoned my neighbor’s grounds and taken refuge close to my house. This situation they resorted to afterwards for several successive summers, each season building two nests, never using the same nest a second time, although each time it was left as clean and in as good condition as when first made. Indeed, this species is remarkable for its cleanliness, both in its own person and in its care of nestlings and nests.

      They feed their young chiefly with insects, especially small caterpillars; the destructive canker-worm is one of their favorite articles of food, also the larvæ of insects and the smaller moths. When crumbs of bread are given them, they are eagerly gathered and taken to their nests.

      In the Middle States they are said to have three broods in a season. This may also be so in New England, but I have never known one pair to have more than two broods in the same summer, even when both had been successfully reared. Nests found after July have always been in cases where some accident had befallen the preceding brood.

      The nest of the Song Sparrow, whether built on ground, bush, or tree, is always well and thoroughly made. Externally and at the base it consists of stout stems of grasses, fibrous twigs of plants, and small sticks and rootlets. These are strongly wrought together. Within is made a neat, well-woven basket of fine long stems of grasses, rarely anything else. On the ground they are usually concealed beneath a tuft of grass; sometimes they make a covered passage-way of several inches, leading to their nest. When built in a tree or shrub, the top is often sheltered by the branches or by dry leaves, forming a covering to the structure.

      The eggs of the Song Sparrow are five in number, and have an average measurement of .82 by .60 of an inch. They have a ground of a clay-color or dirty white, and are spotted equally over the entire egg with blotches of a rusty-brown, intermingled with lighter shades of purple. In some these markings are so numerous and confluent as to entirely conceal the ground-color; in others they are irregularly diffused over different parts, leaving patches unmarked. Occasionally the eggs are unspotted, and are then not unlike those of Leucosticte griseinucha.

Melospiza melodia, var. fallax, BairdWESTERN SONG SPARROW

      Zonotrichia fallax, Baird, Pr. A. N. Sc. Ph. VII, June, 1854, 119 (Pueblo Creek, New Mexico). ? Zonotrichia fasciata, (Gm.) Gambel, J. A. N. Sc. Ph. 2d Series, I, 1847, 49. Melospiza fallax, Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 481, pl. xxvii, f. 2.—Kennerly, P. R. R. X, b. pl. xxvii, f. 2.—Cooper, Orn. Cal. 1, 215.

      Sp. Char. Similar to var. melodia, but with the bill on the whole rather smaller, more slender, and darker. Legs quite dusky, not yellow. Entire plumage of a more grayish cast, including the whole superciliary stripe. The streaks on throat and jugulum in spring are almost black, as in melodia; in autumn more rufous; in all cases quite as sharply defined as in melodia. The bill is nearly black in spring.

      Hab. Middle Province of United States, to the Sierra Nevada.

      This race, intermediate between melodia and heermanni in habitat, is, however, hardly so in characters. The bill is more slender than in either, being much like that of guttata, and the tail is longer in proportion to the wing. In colors it is paler than either, the ground-cast above being nearly clear grayish: the streaks, both on the back and jugulum, are more sparse, as well as narrower; СКАЧАТЬ