Their nest is placed on the ground, sometimes in a tussock of grass or roots
of an upturned tree quite surrounded by water. Four or five soiled white eggs
with reddish-brown spots are laid usually twice in 2 season.
TREE SPARROW (Spizella monticola) Finch family
Called also: CANADA SPARROW; WINTER CHIPPY; TREE BUNTING; WINTER
CHIP-BIRD; ARCTIC CHIPPER
Length -- 6 to 6.35 inches. About the same size as the English
sparrow.
Male -- Crown of head bright chestnut. Line over the eye, cheeks,
throat, and breast gray, the breast with an indistinct black
spot on centre. Brown back, the feathers edged with black and
buff. Lower back pale grayish brown. Two whitish bars across
dusky wings; tail feathers bordered with grayish white.
Underneath whitish.
Female -- Smaller and less distinctly marked.
Range -- North America, from Hudson Bay to the Carolinas, and
westward to the plains.
Migrations -- October. April. Winter resident.
A revised and enlarged edition of the friendly little chipping sparrow, that
hops to our very doors for crumbs throughout the mild weather, comes out of
British America at the beginning of winter to dissipate much of the winter's
dreariness by his cheerful twitterings. Why he should have been called a tree
sparrow is a mystery, unless because he does not frequent trees
-- a reason with sufficient plausibility to commend the name to several of
the early ornithologists, who not infrequently called a bird precisely what it
was not.
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