The song begins with three soft,
wild whistles, and ends with a series of trills and quavers that gradually
melt away into silence: a serene and restful strain as soothing as a hymn.
Like the vesper sparrows, these birds sometimes build a plain, grassy nest,
unprotected by over hanging bush, flat upon the ground. Possibly from a
prudent tear of field-mice and snakes, the little mother most frequently lays
her bluish-white, rufous -- marked eggs in a nest placed in a bush of a bushy
field. Hence John Burroughs has called the bird the ''bush sparrow."
FOX SPARROW (Passerella ilica) Finch family
Called also: FOX-COLORED SPARROW; FERRUGINOUS FINCH; FOXY FINCH
Length -- 6.5 to 7.25 inches. Nearly an inch longer than the
English sparrow.
Male and Female -- Upper parts reddish brown, varied with ash
gray, brightest on lower back, wings, and tail. Bluish slate
about the head. Underneath whitish; the throat, breast, and
sides heavily marked with arrow-heads and oblong dashes of
reddish brown and blackish.
Range -- Alaska and Manitoba to southern United States. Winters
chiefly south of Illinois and Virginia. Occasional stragglers
remain north most of the winter.
Migrations -- March. November. Most common in the migrations.
There will be little difficulty in naming this largest, most plump and reddish
of all the sparrows, whose fox-colored feathers, rather than any malicious
cunning of its disposition, are responsible for the name it bears.
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