Bt oe eka rt eee Pre i vi ie on ia a "i 4 i Mr 1 wn nA Wet Le eee ; Bhs varie wk fi i ’ eT | fae a i Seam kere saat ty Be ROTLY Ai 2. ei oe is ‘ : Baw tlie DALLAS - eee ier Vo 8 Fie shes oa ee ee aaa Roe Ft gent iv ,. 7h; 1 ; ie si a i ui ¥ : Dy } 7 i j 1 a 1 . a bakin ieee bint ye Ax > fe ei taal ; \ | 7, | a bs ee: 7 i.) a ro i. La ey iG o* + Sek — vt 7 : 7 + RMSE if Ah ed i Pe = i 7 * 7 ‘ a cay ia ma i if Mh : , - 5 on is a ie - fi ae on - United States National Museum Bulletin 211 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BLACKBIRDS, ORIOLES, TANAGERS, AND ALLIES Order Passeriformes: Families Ploceidae, Icteridae, and Thraupidae By ARTHUR CLEVELAND BENT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION - WASHINGTON, D.C. - 1958 Publications of the U. S. National Museum The scientific publications of the National Museum include two series known, respectively, as Proceedings and Bulletin. The Proceedings series, begun in 1878, is intended primarily as a medium for the publication of original papers based on the collections of the National Museum, that set forth newly acquired facts in biology, anthropology, and geology, with descriptions of new forms and revi- sions of limited groups. Copies of each paper, in pamphlet form, are distributed as published to libraries and scientific organizations and to specialists and others interested in the different subjects. The dates at which these separate papers are published are recorded in the table of contents of each of the volumes. The series of Bulletins, the first of which was issued in 1875, contains separate publications comprising monographs of large zoological groups and other general systematic treatises (occasionally in several volumes), faunal works, reports of expeditions, catalogs of type speci- mens, special collections, and other material of similar nature. The majority of the volumes are octavo in size, but a quarto size has been adopted in a few instances. In the Bulletin series appear volumes under the heading Contributions from the United States National Herbarium, in octavo form, published by the National Museum since 1902, which contain papers relating to the botanical collections of the Museum. The present work forms No. 211 of the Bulletin series. REMINGTON KELLOGG, Director, United States National Museum. UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 1958 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. 8. Government Printing Office Washington 25, D. OC. - Price $2.25 (paper) It CONTENTS Introduction . Order Passeriformes . Family Ploceidae: Weaver fakes 5 Passer domesticus domesticus: English ate Habits Distribution . Sete SY tu rele Veta tees are ie Passer montanus montanus: European tree sparrow . Habits Distribution . ‘ Family Icteridae: Meadow igness pinslbicds: or froupials 4 Dolichonyz oryzivorus: Bobolink Se Habits Distribution . Sturnella magna magna: Baetorn mieaterleai Habits Distribution . Sturnella magna porate Seutheu meade dsir Habits Distribution . Ra RRS Ta ee td tn Cae Ye 5 Sturnella magna hoopesi: Rio Grande meadowlark Habits Distribution . : ‘ Sturnella magna lilianae: anions meena, pte : Habits Distribution . : Sturnella neglecta neglecta: sicstern edo tari Habits Distribution . Sturnella neglecta consliaeda: Pacific Ese mae Wile Habits Distribution . ; X anthocephalus Pee ahalie Mellow ceded bleckhirds Habits Art Meee Sart craks nen Ales Distribution . 2 Agelaius phoeniceus emu: aasieen a dane ; Habits Distribution . Sets. wees. cst oe Agelaius phoeniceus mearnsi: Wlonida: redwing. Habits Distribution . Shes Sa oe rai ceoe rae Agelaius phoeniceus onions: Maynard's redwing . Habits Distribution . : ae ct eco ih ce hs Agelaius phoeniceus liter ades: Gulf coast redwing . Habits Sas eis eI SL Oise DD IStTIDULION., yomeel < Gar es ie) xe ga Tit 123 123 147 151 151 153 153 153 154 155 155 156 IV U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 Family Icteridae: Meadowlarks, blackbirds, and troupials—Continued Agelaius phoeniceus megapotamus: Rio Grande redwing Habits) Gi. % 2 ss « Oe ee ae Distribution: 22s) = ceca. a eete a esas Agelaius phoeniceus arctolegus: Giant ae ES areas coe iy as abit?! s,m sts BP MAAN ete Court eine we Po iehasns os DIStLibUtIOM es. eabonne ao chers. ooo te soeomared ie: tel Gaiters ae 3 Agelaius phoeniceus fortis: Thick-billed agin i! canta PETES Tal bits ts aabe Sok \ WT t are site Syru vial? hte eR of? ati { af. pm ; ay : 7 v At 24) a aye ny “s vi ‘ L ® i + vine Es risa i ig : ’ : renee ult vu thay 7 t ; « vie HAP Coy / a a7? ¥ abe » 34 a , 2 2 5 e. ; : rif its : od a . 7 : | f ' x : ara | ot n? Setee ts bree f a Gs Ny i ‘ é : M Pore - ibe i ‘ ; ' ey Te tate wh: TES ib eS dll il tha ihe iri | tte 7 ah : ia ; ‘‘¢ i te sat fj ; war. ee i ~ J ’ { soe : ay Cee ad d eaten ehh kG se ASD ayiah wea I A ‘ine quits ™ Weal inte) a : . a Ir sl - ! : % ‘ if Cre it Ae Jia ce me ‘ ¥ Mm, hy A eed 4 . . >, Wa ; = x? @) => s wt Site 7 * LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WEAVER FINCHES, BLACKBIRDS, ORIOLES, AND TANAGERS By Artaur CLEVELAND BENT Order PASSERIFORMES: Family PLocEIDAE, Weaver Finches PASSER DOMESTICUS DOMESTICUS (Linnacus) English Sparrow HABITS The common name English sparrow is a misnomer, but it has stuck to this bird for some hundred years and is likely to survive indefinitely. It was quite natural to call it the English sparrow, as most of the birds were imported from England, but the species is widely distributed in Europe and Asia, with closely related forms in North Africa. For a full account of its distribution and geographical variations the reader is referred to an excellent paper on the subject by Dr. John C. Phillips (1915). And, after calling it a sparrow for these many years, and our commonest and best known sparrow at that, we must recognize it as a weaver finch and separate it widely from our sparrows in the A. O. U. Check-List. Who wants to call it the European weaver finch? The scientific name has not been changed, for which we may be truly thankful! Many years ago, when I was a small boy, probably in the late 1860’s or early 1870’s, my uncle, who lived next door to us in Taunton, was the first to introduce English sparrows into that immediate vicinity. He built a large flying cage in his garden that was roofed over, covered with netting on four sides, and well supplied with perches and nesting boxes. Here the sparrows were so well fed and cared for that they soon began to breed. It was not long before the cage became overcrowded, and he ordered his coachman to put up 1 2 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 numerous nesting boxes all over the place and to liberate the sparrows. They soon filled all the new boxes, and also drove away the purple martins, tree swallows, and house wrens from all! the older boxes. When the neighbors’ cats killed a few of the precious sparrows, which were the newest pets and were zealously guarded, my uncle became so angered that he ordered his coachman to “‘kill every cat in the neigh- borhood.” My uncle drove in that night to find the coachman with nine of the neighbors’ cats laid out on the stable floor, a cause for some profanity. It was not long, however, before my uncle began to miss the martins, swallows, and wrens and to realize that the sparrows were not as desirable as expected; so he ordered the coachman to reduce them. ‘This he did effectively by digging a trench and filling it with grain, so that he could kill large numbers with a single raking shot. But the martins, swallows, and wrens never returned. This incident is typical of what happened in many other places before we realized that we had made a great mistake in importing this undesirable alien. Walter B. Barrows (1889), in his Bulletin on this species, quotes the following account by Nicolas Pike of his efforts to get the English sparrow established in this country: It was not till 1850 that the first eight pairs were brought from England to the Brooklyn Institute, of which I was then a director. We built a large cage for them, and cared for them during the winter months. Early in the spring of 1851 they were liberated, but they did not thrive. In 1852 a committee of members of the Institute was chosen for the re-intro- duction of these birds, of which I was chairman [sic]. Over $200 was subscribed for expenses. I went to England in 1852, on my way to the consul-generalship of Portugal. On my arrival in Liverpool I gave the order for a large lot of Sparrows and song birds to be purchased at once. They were shipped on board the steam-ship Europa, if I am not mistaken, in charge of an officer of the ship. Fifty Sparrows were let loose at the Narrows, according to instructions, and the rest on arrival were placed in the tower of Greenwood Cemetery chapel. ‘They did not do well, so were removed to the house of Mr. John Hooper, one of the committee, who offered to take care of them during the winter. In the spring of 1853 they were all let loose in the grounds of Greenwood Cemetery, and a man hired to watch them. They did well and multiplied, and I have original notes taken from time to time of their increase and colonization Over our great country. Barrows lists the following other places in which the sparrows were introduced directly from Europe: Portland, Maine, in 1854 and 1858; Peacedale, R. I., in 1858; Boston, Mass., 1858-60; New York, 1860-66; Rochester, N. Y., between 1865 and 1869; New Haven, Conn., 1867; Galveston, Tex., 1867; Charlestown, Mass., 1869; Cleveland, Ohio, 1869; Philadelphia, Pa., 1869 or earlier; Salt Lake City, Utah, 1873-74; Akron, Ohio, 1875; Fort Howard, Wis., 1875; Sheboygan, Wis., 1875; ENGLISH SPARROW a and Iowa City, Iowa, 1881. He gives a long list of places in which the sparrows were introduced, probably by transplanting from other places in the United States, and adds: ‘‘A study of these tables shows that even before 1875 there were many large sparrow colonies through- out the United States, east of the Mississippi, as well as several in Canada, one or more in Utah, one at Galveston, Tex., and probably another in San Francisco, Cal. There were small colonies also in eastern Iowa and in Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska.” With all these importations and transplantings, it is no wonder that the English sparrow was soon able to overrun the whole country. Barrows (1889) estimated that by 1886 the sparrow was “‘found to have established itself in thirty-five States and five Territories.” It spread and increased very rapidly. Between 1870 and 1875 it spread over 500 square miles; from 1875 to 1880 it spread over 15,640 square miles; between 1880 and 1885 it spread over 500,760 square miles; and in the year 1886 alone it added 516,500 squares to itsrange. Thisrange was naturally spotty, there being many portions of each State that had not been invaded, and the centers of abundance were near the points of introductions. For example, although it made its first appearance in California, in the San Francisco Bay region, in 1871 or 1872, it extended its range very slowly during the next 20 years into adjacent regions; it apparently did not become established in Los Angeles County until about 1906 and in San Diego County about 1913, according to Grinnell and Miller (1944), but by 1915 it “‘had spread to virtually all sections of the State, at least locally in towns and about ranches, inclusive of desert areas and the larger islands offshore.”’ It evidently invaded Arizona in 1903 and 1904, and New Mexico about 1909. Finley (1907) reported it at Portland, Oreg., in 1889, but Rathbun tells me that it did not appear in Seattle until 1897 and Bellingham, Wash., in 1900. It spread through Colorado between 1895 and 1906. KE. R. Kalmbach (1940) writes: “At present the range of the English sparrow in North America covers the entire continental United States except Alaska, all thickly settled parts of the contiguous Canadian Provinces, and similar areas in Mexico south at least as far as San Luis Potosi and Guadalajara in Jalisco. * * * The most northerly point of occurrence of which the writer has record is Two Islands Indian Village on the Mackenzie River, 30 miles below Fort Simpson, Mackenzie, latitude 62 N. * * * The bird is known also at Atha- baska Landing in northern Alberta and is present in most of the settlements in the coastal region of British Columbia.” Leonard Wing (1943), in comparing the spread of the English spar- row with that of the starling, states that ‘the English sparrow spread 4 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 much faster than the starling, and its occupation was substantially completed forty years after its introduction. The starling spread is still far from finished fifty years after its introduction.” The rapid spread of the sparrow is largely due to the fact that it was much more widely introduced and artificially transplanted. Being largely a grain-eating bird, it traveled extensively from place to place along the highways, where it could pick up waste grain dropped by passing vehicles and find some semidigested grain in the droppings of horses. Undoubtedly many found their way to more distant places by securing unintentional transportation in grain cars or cattle cars, as shown by the fact that towns and cities along the principal railway lines, especially where there has been heavy traffic in grain, have been the first communities occupied. When these places have become over- crowded, the birds have spread out into the surrounding rural or suburban regions. At the peak of its abundance, during the early part of this century, the English sparrow was undoubtedly the most abundant bird in the United States, except in heavily forested, alpine, and desert regions. Within its favorite haunts one could easily see twice as many sparrows as all other birds combined. Mrs. Nice (1931) says: “The English or House Sparrow appears to be the most abundant breeding bird in Oklahoma. On 1,166 miles of ‘roadside censuses’ taken in May, June, and early July, 1920-1923, in all sections of the state, we counted 2,055 of these birds; this was 26 percent of all the birds seen and twice as many as the most common native bird—the Dickcissel.”’ Tilford Moore tells me that in his counts in St. Paul, Minn., he recorded 42 English sparrows to 20 other birds. On the other hand, Wing (1943) estimates that in the Eastern States these sparrows con- stitute about 3 percent of the breeding bird population and about 4.5 percent of the wintering bird population. If this is true today, there has been a marked decrease in the East during the past two decades; and this is quite evident to the casual observer. The decrease is most marked in the Eastern States, especially in the cities and towns, though the sparrows are still common in the rural districts, about the farmyards and poultry farms, where there is still plenty of grain being fed to livestock. The vast hordes that formerly roosted in the trees of the King’s Chapel and Granary burying grounds, in the center of the city of Boston, are no more, though a few may still be found in the public parks, where the pigeons seem to find some food. Warren F. Eaton (1924), then of Weston, Mass., published some interesting data showing the decline in the numbers of these sparrows in eastern Massachusetts, between 1914 and 1922. The number of days on which the sparrows were seen declined from 232 in 1916 to 101 in 1922; and the total number of sparrows seen declined ENGLISH SPARROW b5) from 2,705, an average of 13.7 per day, between November 20, 1914, and January 1, 1916, to only 570, an average of 5.6 per day, between January 1, 1921, and June 28, 1922. He claims to have kept a careful record and “accurate account of every bird seen at any time.” According to W. H. Bergtold (1921), there was a marked decrease in the number of English sparrows in Denver, Colo., during the 15 years previous to 1921. His observations were made in ‘‘a well grassed and timbered area surrounding the Court House,” opposite his office; he estimated conservatively that 15 years ago ‘‘the sparrow population of this area * * * could not have been less than one thousand birds.” Careful counts made by him on 7 days in October 1919, in the same area, varied from 5 to less than 20 birds seen each day. Considerable falling off in numbers has been noted in the cities and towns of eastern Canada, but in the rural districts and in some of the towns in the Prairie regions the decline in numbers is less marked and the population has become more static. Natural causes do not seem to have been sufficient to account for the decrease in numbers; English sparrows have no more serious natural enemies than other birds; there is no evidence of any wide- spread epidemics or diseases; the elements have caused some wholesale destruction in a few places, but other birds have recovered from the results of such disasters. There remains a generally accepted cause, the diminution in the food supply, especially in the cities. It is signifi- cant that the decrease in the sparrow population in urban and suburban areas coincides very closely with the increased use of motor vehicles and the decrease in the number of horses that formerly spread a bountiful food supply along our streets and highways. Even in the farming districts, the tractor and other mechanical agricultural ma- chines have largely replaced the horse; and in the cities and towns a horse-drawn vehicle is a rare sight today. Bergtold (1921) gives us some figures to illustrate the passing of the horse; official statistics show that, in Denver, the number of horses declined from 5,904 in 1907 to 3,832 in 1917, a reduction of about 33 percent. He says further: ‘There can be, however, little'question concerning the reality of the ‘vanishing horse’, for it has been shown (Saturday Evening Post, Sept. 13, 1919) that the number of horses in New York City recently declined from 108,036 to 75,740, and it is probable that what amounts to decrease (by displacement or substitution) has occurred also in suburban areas, since statistics seem to show a decrease or displace- ment of 33% of the horses in one of the Dakotas. Finally in this connection it can be said that early in November 1919 there were enough tractors in use in Colorado to displace 16,000 horses.” The above is largely ancient history, but the figures show the trend, which has been going on ever since at an increasing rate until the 6 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 horse, as a tractive force, has almost reached the vanishing point. The motor vebicle has driven the English sparrow out of our cities not only by removing its principal, almost its only, food supply, but by making its street life so hazardous among the swiftly moving vehicles as to cause it to seek safer surroundings, where food is more easily obtained. Studies of stomach contents show that no very large pro- portion of the food of this bird consists of semidigested oats, from which it may be contended that the passing of the horse was not a primary factor in the decline of the sparrow; nevertheless the passing of the horse certainly resulted in driving the great concentrations of sparrows out of our large cities. Courtship.—tThe courtship of the English sparrow is more spec- tacular and strenuous than elegant. It used to be a common ex- perience to see a group of these dirty, soot-begrimed street gamins struggling and fighting almost under our feet in our streets and gutters, oblivious to their surroundings. Charles W. Townsend (1909) thus describes the actions of the ardent male: With flattened back, head held up and tail down [up?], wings out from the body, the tips of the primaries touching or nearly touching the ground, he hops back and forth before the coy female as if on springs. Not one but several dance thus before a lady who barely deigns to look at them, and then only to peck in feigned disgust at the love-lorn suitors. These pecks are often far from love pats. At times she stands in the middle of a ring of males at whom she pecks viciously in turn as they fly by, all chirping excitedly at the top of their lungs. The casual observer might think the lady was being tormented by a crowd of ungallant males, but the opposite is in reality the case for the lady is well pleased and is showing her pretended feminine contempt for the male sex, who on their part are trying their best to attract and charm her. At other times she plants her bill firmly on the head of the suitor, and pecks at him violently from time to time without letting go her hold. I have seen several such one-sided fights, for the oppressed rarely fights back, where the male seemed to be on the verge of exhaustion, lying panting on the ground, but on being disturbed both birds flew off apparently none the worse. * * * About a year ago I watched two males in fierce encounter on a small grass plot in front of my house. One had the other by the bill and held him back downwards on the grass. They were both using their claws vigorously and bracing with their wings. Occasionally they would roll over, or go head over heels. Breaking apart they would fly up at each other like enraged barn-yard cocks. Although I stood within two feet of them, so intent were they that they did not notice me until I made an incautious movement and they fled to fight elsewhere. A disgraceful fight between two female English Sparrows occurred in front of my house one April day. Catching each other by the bills they pulled and tugged and rolled over on the grass. When they broke away the fight was renewed a few inches above the ground in fighting cock style. Three males appeared, and watched the fight. One, evidently scandalized, endeavored to separate the Amazons by pecking at them, but they paid no attention to him and only after some time flew away, one chasing the other. ENGLISH SPARROW “ Claude T. Barnes has sent me the following interesting account of the mating of this strenuous species: ‘The incredible English sparrow is the best illustration of furor amatorius. The male suffers from satyriasis, the female from nymphomania. In the several years that we have observed them breeding, in two instances copulation took place fourteen times in succession, with a stopwatch record of five seconds for the act and five seconds for the interval. In each instance it was the soft tee tee tce tee tee tee of the female, sitting with outstretched wings, that attracted our attention, and our count one was perhaps in reality two or three. Since other males within 20 feet took no interest, we believe that despite its reputation for promiscuity the domestic sparrow, after earlier imbroglios are settled, actually does mate with at least a short period of fidelity. Once mated, however, the female seems willing to continue the venery beyond the capacity of the male, for in every instance we have observed she continued her fluttering chant until he ceased to respond.”’ Nesting.—The resourceful and adaptable English sparrow will build its bulky, unkempt, and loosely constructed nest in almost any conceivable spot that will give it support, some security, and a reason- able degree of concealment, though some of the locations seem to lack even these requirements. Their favored site appears to be a nesting box, from which other box-nesting birds are often excluded or sometimes even evicted. But sometimes, even where boxes are available, natural sites have been occupied. Richard L. Weaver (1939) found in his studies at Ithaca, N. Y., that “boxes were not preferred to natural sites if the natural ones were well hidden. This was shown at the sanctuary pavilion where boxes were placed besides the natural sites. Only five of the twenty-five broods raised there were in boxes, the others being in rafters under the overhanging porch.” In eastern Massachusetts, favorite nesting sites are found in the dense growths of Boston ivy which climb luxuriantly over many of our large buildings and offer good support, security, and some conceal- ment. Similar ivy and other vines are favored in different parts of the country. These vines sometimes harbor so many nests that they become a nuisance; the slovenly nests disfigure the walls, while the vines and the ground beneath are defiled by the droppings of the birds, and the noisy chattering of so many birds disturbs the occupants of the buildings. Attempts to drive away the birds by pulling down the nests have not always been successful; some of the nests are 40 or 50 feet from the ground and difficult to reach; and the birds are so per- sistent that they return to build again. But repeated efforts will eventually succeed and the sparrows will learn to build their nests in less conspicuous places, where they are less likely to be disturbed. 380928—58——2 8 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 Charles R. Stockard (1905) writes: ‘“There was a church in Colum- bus [Miss.] the walls of which were completely covered with ivy and the ivy was almost as completely filled with sparrows’ nests. Permis- sion was obtained to raid this colony and in one day four hundred and fifty-nine eggs were taken and about seven hundred young sparrows were killed. * * * Several compound nests were found, one a large ball of hay with three small openings each leading to a separate feather-lined chamber containing a set of eggs.” In the days when we had arc lights over the streets, sparrows built their nests on the supports under the hoods, where they had shelter and warmth at night. Occasionally I have seen sparrows occupying one compartment in a large martin box while the purple martins lived in the others. The bulky nests of large hawks often have sparrow nests in their lower portions; many times I have seen one in an osprey’s huge nest, and have even found one occupying a crevice in the nest of a Swainson’s hawk. The sparrows do not seem to bother the martins, nor are they afraid of the large hawks. Sometimes sparrows drive out cliff swallows and occupy their bottleneck nests; occasionally they use deserted nests of cliff or even barn swallows. A. Dawes Du Bois tells me that he found ‘a great many English sparrows” occupying the lower holes in a large colony of bank swallows. He also saw one building a nest in a woodpecker’s hole. Natural cavities in trees, especially apple trees, cavities such as are used by starlings, bluebirds and tree swallows, offer convenient nesting sites. When the sparrows were more abundant in our cities they nested in large numbers, sometimes as many as half a dozen nests in a tree, in the shade trees along the streets and in the parks; their large nests were very conspicuous before the trees were in full leaf. Most of these nests were in deciduous trees at heights ranging from 10 up to 50 feet. Some nests were in spruces; and, in California, nests are often seen in the tallest eucalyptus trees, and even palms. In or about buildings the sparrows will build their nests wherever they can find lodgement for them, on a rafter or a brace, on the corbel of a pillar, on a rain spout under the eaves, behind blinds or shutters, or in the pocket of a drawn-up awning; in the last case, if the awning is lowered, the nest is destroyed, but the sparrows will build there again, if the awning remains drawn-up long enough. Hervey Brack- bill has sent me the following description of an awning nest: ‘‘A nest built in a deep fold of a drawn-up awning in Baltimore city was a great mass of loosely-placed and loosely-woven material, in the middle of which was a comparatively small and rather neat pocket for the eggs. In its extreme dimensions, the whole unkempt thing was 20 inches tall and 12 by 5 inches in breadth. The actual nest pocket had an extreme depth of 7 inches, but from the point where the walls ENGLISH SPARROW 9 became solid the depth was only 5; the inner diameter was 3 inches. The nest was made chiefly of very long, coarse grass stems with the heads still on, but it also contained some leaves, a few small feathers, a small wad of cotton, several pieces of string, a piece of cloth, and a piece of waxed chewing gum paper.” Nests in other cavities vary greatly in size, the space, whether large or small, being filled with the material. Nests in open situations in trees are usually large, more or less globular in shape, with the entrance on the side. William L. Finley (1907) published a photograph of a nest in an unusual location, of which he says: ‘‘Down near the end of sparrow row some hornets built a nest up under the projecting eaves of the front porch of a cottage, just beside the bracket. I can understand how a pair of sparrows will fight for a bird-box and drive other birds away, but I never dreamed they would be envious of the hornets. But a sparrow must have a place to nest. Whether the hornets left voluntarily or with the aid of the sparrows I do not know, but the next time I passed I found the birds in possession—actually making a home in the hornet’s nest. They had gone in through the bracket and pulled out a large part of the comb, and were replacing it with grass and feathers.” Weaver (1939) observed that— Nest sites were chosen both before and after mating had occurred. If before, the male selected the site and performed his courtship from there, but if afterward, the female helped with or probably did most of the choosing. * * * “The variations in nest structure resulted mostly from the presence or absence of certain nesting materials. The commonest form of nest was one with an outer structure of coarse hay or dried weeds, and a lining of finer materials such as feathers, cord, hair, and frayed rope. Hay and dried weeds were preferable to straw. Feathers were preferred to other lining materials and the birds often traveled several hundred yards to the chicken yards to obtain them. * * * “Coarse materials were brought to the site selected and layed down rather loosely for a foundation. When astrong support was necessary many stiff stems of hay or weeds were forced into small crevices around the sides and bottom of the nest. As the bulk increased upwards, the female formed the cup by turning round and round in the center. This movement caused the long strands to bend into a ‘U’ shape. The ends were, therefore, forced up along the sides and helped to support the roof, which was added next. After the outer shell was constructed, the lining was added.” The English sparrow is an early and a late nester, as well as a prolific breeder, raising several broods a year. Clarence Cottam (1929) holds the record for an early nesting date in Utah. On January 1, 1929, a boy showed him a nest containing five naked young, recently hatched. The temperature was near the zero point at the time and went down to 14 below during the month. ‘During the first 18 days one or both parents were almost constantly on the nest. During the 10 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 night both parents remained within the bird house. Contrary to the usual custom of these birds, the young were practically grown when they left the nest and began to fly. One of these juveniles, collected late in February, disclosed a body that was fat and in perfect physical condition.” This was, of course, a very unusual date for nesting, as the eggs were laid in December. J. J. Murray writes to me that he has seen these birds carrying nesting material as early as February 1, and that a neighbor took a practically complete nest out of a wren box on Febru- ary 21. He has also seen them carry material into a hole as late as November 2. These dates indicate possible nesting activities in every month of the year. Weaver (1943), on the other hand says: ‘“The season of nesting is from April to September for most of the United States but may start as early as March 2 in the South and may be delayed until near the first of May in parts of Canada and in Hurope.”’ Eggs.—The number of eggs laid by the English sparrow varies from three to seven; five seems to be the commonest number, though sets of six are not very rare; as many as nine have been recorded, and four seems to be the normal minimum. The eggs are mainly ovate in shape, with a tendency toward elongate ovate, and they have very little gloss. Niethammer (1937) gives a very good description of them, of which the following is a translation: ‘Eggs—very variable with basic color almost pure white, greenish or bluish, less often green- gray or brownish. Marks limited to a few gray or brown dots, usually consisting of closely packed, clouded or sharply limited spots, which vary from deep black-brown through all tone ranges to bright ashy gray and can crowd in toward the blunt end, however, without forming a genuine wreath structure. Usually the last egg is abnormally colored; basic color brighter, spotting more pronounced and not so frequent. Likewise the next to the last egg has a darker basic color and very dense marking.” Weaver (1943) gives the measurements of 54 eggs, of which the average is 22.8 by 15.4 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 25.0 by 16.0, 22.0 by 16.8, 20.2 by 15.0, and 20.4 by 14.5 millimeters. Young.—Weaver (1943) found that incubation was performed wholly by the female, 12 days being the commonest incubation period: “Three of the twenty-two sets required thirteen days, nine required twelve days, one required eleven days, and three sets required ten days.” He figured that incubation began with the laying of the third ege. Of the hatching operation he writes: A clicking sound usually announces the readiness of the young to start hatching. It is made by contact of the egg tooth with the shell and possibly also by a clicking together of the mandibles. The egg tooth presses against the shell and makes an ENGLISH SPARROW 11 upraised crease around the larger end of the egg about one-fourth of the way from the end. The young bird may break the shell with the egg tooth before the crease is noticeable. In either case, a slit now appears, starting at a point where the egg tooth first pushed through the shell. The slit is made in a circular direction around the egg and meets the point where it started. The young is able to turn itself or its head in the egg making a complete circular slit possible. The head is located in the larger end of the egg and as the slit nears completion the piece of shell around the head is broken off and the head is freed. The larger piece of shell is now kicked free and the young forces itself out. The feet are crowded into the depressions on either side of the neck while in the shell, and after hatching they have a tendency to remain doubled up for several hours. Often the shell does not come free from the young immediately and the female will help to remove it, and when doing so may often carry the young and the shell out of the nest causing early death to the unfortunate young. In another paper (1942) he describes the development of the young in great detail, with illustrations, but I quote only from his summary: English Sparrows are hatched without natal down. * * * The egg tooth disappears and the edges of the bill change from white to lemon- yellow by the fourth day after hatching. * * * The greatest development in the plumage of young sparrows is delayed until the latter part of the period in the nest. The greatest change in appearance of young English Sparrows occurs between the age of six and seven days, when most of the feathers emerge and many of them lose their sheaths, By the tenth day after hatching the color pattern is evident, showing a wing bar, and in some males a black bib. Practically all of the sheaths have disappeared from the contour feathers and all but one-fourth of the flight feathers are unsheathed by the fifteenth day. These sheaths may remain one to two weeks after the young depart from tbe nest. The greatest amount of sheath is present in the flight feathers on the eleventh day. The amount of sheathing present gives an accurate criterion of the age of young birds in the nest. Most of the young left the nest at about the fifteenth day, but English Sparrows may remain in the nest for seventeen days if entirely undisturbed. Males and females share about equally in the feeding of the young at the nest, but the females do the greater portion of the nest sanitation. Both birds may brood the young, although the female does the greater part of it, and always stays in the nest during the night. The young are fed by regurgitation during the first part of the period after hatching. There was 70.5 per cent success of survival in thirty-eight nests which produced 127 young from 180 eggs laid. This corresponds closely to that reported for other hole-nesting species. The older young are able to command the most advantageous positions in the nest and thus receive relatively more food and often are able to leave the nest several days before the other young. The young can fly rather well upon leaving the nest, considerably better than do the young of most species that nest in the open. The young are fed by the adults for a period of two weeks, and probably more, after leaving the nest. The young have a strong bond for one another. The young, out of the nest, may be fed entirely by one adult or by both. A complete post-juvenal molt begins about five weeks after the young leave ae It began in early August and ended in mid-September at Ithaca in 1937, 12 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 Probably the English sparrow raises regularly two broods of young in a season and often three, but it is doubtful if more than three are often raised. Reports of four or five broods have not been definitely proven, so far as we know. Weaver (1943) suggests: “Since one individual nest may be used by three or more different females in one season, the actual number of broods raised by one female in a season is questionable. Two banded females are known to have raised but two complete broods in one season while one nest site is known to have been used four times with three successful broods. Therefore, it is suspected that the large number of broods claimed by some writers may refer to clutches per nest site rather than broods per female.” When a nest is robbed or destroyed, however, the sparrows lose no time in making another attempt to raise a brood. Murray writes to me: “I tore a nest out of a hole on April 11, and 26 days later, on May 7, the pair had two young and two eggs ready to hatch.” Barrows (1889) quotes Otto Widmann as saying: “‘A Sparrow never deserts its brood. If one of the parents is killed, the other will do all the work alone. If a young one happens to fall down from the lofty nest, it is not lost; the parents feed it, shelter, and defend it. If a young Sparrow is taken from the nest and placed in a cage, the mother feeds it for days and weeks, even if she has to enter a room to get to it.” Plumages.—Both sexes are alike in the juvenal plumage, which Dwight (1900) describes as follows: “Above, hair-brown somewhat buffy, wings and tail slightly darker, and streaked broadly with clove- brown on the back; secondaries, tertiaries and wing coverts edged with wood-brown. Below, mouse-gray, darkest across jugulum and on the sides, the chin and mid-abdomen nearly white. A dusky postocular stripe.” A complete postjuvenal molt takes place about 5 weeks after the young bird leaves the nest, at which the male acquires the black throat and becomes practically indistinguishable from the adult. Dwight (1900) describes this handsome plumage as follows: Pileum, rump and upper tail coverts smoke-gray, the feathers brownish edged and dusky basally. The back streaked with black each feather partly Mar’s- brown and edged with buff. Below, dull white tinged with French-gray on throat and sides, the feather tips with buffy wash, the shafts faintly grayish; the chin and throat, loral and postocular stripe, black veiled with grayish or buffy edgings; sides of chin and throat and mid-abdomen nearly white; auriculars olive-gray; posterior part of superciliary line, postauricular and nuchal regions chestnut veiled with buff edgings. Wings and tail dull black edged with pale cinnamon, rich chestnut on the greater and lesser coverts, the median coverts white, buff edged forming a wing band. ENGLISH SPARROW 13 The first and subsequent nuptial plumages are acquired by wear, which brings out the contrasts in and the brilliancy ofjthe colors. A complete postnuptial molt for both yound and old birds begins late in August. Adult males in winter plumage are not very different from the first winter males; the black of the throat is usually,more extensive, the buff less evident, the crown grayer and the median coverts whiter. After the postjuvenal molt, females resemble the males above, but lack the black throat and the chestnut patches; the molts are the same. Stimulated by Wetmore’s (1936) feather counting, Arthur E. Staebler (1941) took the trouble to count the contour feathers on eight English sparrows of different ages and sexes and at different seasons, from which he made the expected discovery that the spar- rows wear more feathers in winter than in summer; only such feath- ers as formed parts of the outer covering were counted. He found that an adult male taken in January had 3,615 feathers, while an adult male taken in July had 3,138 feathers. Food.—The latest and most comperehensive study of the food of the English sparrow was made by E. R. Kalmbach (1940), based on the examination of 8,004 stomachs of adults and nestlings, 337 of which “were found to be too nearly empty or otherwise unfit for use in the computation of bulk percentages.’”’ The stomachs of the 4,848 adults were found to contain 3.39 percent of animal matter and 96.61 percent vegetable. The proportions were largely reversed for the nestlings, 68.13 percent animal and 31.87 percent vegetable matter. Grouped to show whether the consumption of the various items is beneficial, neutral or harmful to the interests of man, his tables give the following figures: Adults’ animal food is 2.67 percent beneficial, 0.64 percent neutral, and 0.08 percent harmful. Adults’ vegetable food is 16.97 percent beneficial, 24.14 percent neutral, and 55.50 percent harmful. Nestlings’ animal food is 59.21 percent bene- ficial, 4.48 percent neutral, and 4.44 percent harmful. Nestlings’ vegetable food is 0.17 percent beneficial, 7.85 percent neutral, and 23.85 percent harmful. By adding the totals it will be seen that the feeding habits of the adults are 55.58 percent harmful while those of the nestlings are 59.38 beneficial; but, unfortunately, the feeding time of nestlings is very limited. He gives the sparrow credit for destroying many weevils, particu- larly the very destructive alfalfa weevil, scarabaeid beetles, click beetles, leaf beetles, grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, caterpillars, moths, and some flies; but blames it for eating the useful predaceous ground beetles and spiders. He gives it some credit for destroying some weed seeds, but condemns it for the large amounts of feed grains such as 14 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 oats, wheat, and corn that it eats. These grains alone made up over 55 percent of the food of the adults. Forbush (1929) gives the following general account of the food of this bird: “The food of the House Sparrow includes many substances, chiefly vegetal, and ranging from fruit and grain to garbage, and un- digested grain and seeds in horse droppings. It eats greedily all the small grains and bird seeds, crumbs of bread, cake and other foods of mankind, small fruits and succulent garden plants in their tender stages. It destroys young peas, turnips, cabbage and nearly all young vegetables, and it often eats the undeveloped seeds of vege- tables. When numerous it attacks apples, peaches, plums, pears, strawberries, currants and all other common small fruits.” It has repeatedly been seen eating apple blossoms and those of peas and beans. ‘Tilford Moore (MS.) saw one trying to get at the seeds in a large sunflower head, “but, as the bloom was face down- ward and as he was unable to hang upside down, he was unsuccessful. The above method, sometimes successful, is used on seeds at the edge of the bloom only. For seeds toward the center, they hover beneath the bloom and reach up to draw one out. Then they fly to the ground where they remove the husks to get at the kernels. Thus the birds of this species have harvested almost all the seeds.” Irving W. Burr writes to me: “One of the bird’s commonest food in late summer and fall is the seed from crab grass (Digitaria sp.). That is the explanation of the foraging flocks on the lawns. Binocu- lars reveal that the bobbing heads are busy shoveling in the seeds, just as a boy will strip a weed stalk. The number of crab grass seeds which a flock of forty sparrows will eat in a day must be enormous. Surely everyone would regard this as a commendable trait in the bird.” I have seen the birds doing this on my lawns, but cannot see that the crab grass is materially reduced. Judd (1896) also refers to the sparrows as eating the seed of crab grass, chickweed, and dandelion, but none of these lawn pests have been exterminated anywhere, though they may be somewhat con- trolled. He says that ‘“‘more than half of the dandelions that bloomed in April on the lawns of the U. S. Department of Agriculture were damaged by Sparrows.” Kalmbach (1940) mentions ragweed seeds as dominant in the food of this sparrow, but says that crab grass seeds are “taken in greater bulk and numbers but found in fewer stomachs. * * * As many as 1,274 were taken from the crop of a single English sparrow from Alabama; more than 900 each from 2 others; and 150 or more each from fully 40 others.” He then gives a long list of other weed seeds and grass seeds eaten. Judd (1901) said of the vegetable food, as then known and not very different from our present knowledge: ‘Of the 98 percent constituting ENGLISH SPARROW 15 the vegetable food, 7 percent consisted of grass seed, largely of plants of the genera Zizania (wild rice), Panicum, and Chaetocloa, and notably crab-grass and pigeon-grass, and 17 percent of various weeds not belonging to the grass family. The grass and weed seeds taken are not noticeably different from those usually eaten by native spar- rows. But what especially differentiates the vegetable food from that of all other sparrows is the large proportion of grain consumed, which formed 74 per cent of the entire food of the year and 90 percent of that of the period from June to August.” In late summer, when the numbers of these sparrows are augmented by the addition of two or three broods of young, the sparrows swoop down on the grain fields to raid the standing crops; they alight on the stalks to pluck the grain from the fruiting heads or to shake the kernels down to the ground to be picked up at their leisure, all of which results in heavy damage to the crops. Among the few redeeming features in the food of English sparrows is the small percentage of harmful and annoying insects that it eats. Hervey Brackbill writes in his notes: “During one October when aphids heavily infested the silver and Norway maples that line several blocks in northwest Baltimore, English sparrows were among the most persistent of 13 species of birds that fed upon them. The sparrows appeared daily, foraged throughout the 35- to 50-foot trees, and used many different methods. In a heavy vertical fork, a type of place in which the aphids sometimes collected in particular num- bers, one bird once clung for some seconds head downward, much like a nuthatch, while snatching up the insects on all sides. Another clung to a silver maple trunk practically like a woodpecker and foraged over and beneath the flaky bark. The English sparrows also often picked the aphids off the under sides of leaves. The English sparrow is one of the heaviest bird feeders on the Japanese beetle, which has become such a pest in parts of the East. It is the most versatile bird in its hunting of them, too. It flies to commanding perches on rose bushes and trellises, scans the leaves and flowers thoroughly, and upon locating a beetle makes its capture with a swoop. It searches the bushes from below, hopping along the flower beds, peering intently and then darting upward to seize its prey. I have seen it make catches as high as 18 feet up in trees. It also pursues low-flying beetles through the air and captures them on the wing.” I can remember that many years ago, before the sparrows became abundant, we were greatly annoyed by inch worms spinning down upon us from the trees which they had partially defoliated. Then the sparrows came and began foraging in our shade trees for these little caterpillars or canker worms, as well as for the elm-leaf beetles. 16 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 We frequently saw several sparrows at work in a single tree. At the height of the sparrow abundance these little worms were nearly exterminated about my home, or at least very materially reduced in numbers. But, since the decline in the sparrow population, the inch worms have increased decidedly. The scarcity of vireos and other insectivorous birds may have partially accounted for the increase in the inch worms. I remember once, when there was a plague of army worms here, the sparrows gathered in large numbers and fed greedily upon them. In the West, outbreaks of Mormon crickets have been at least checked by English sparrows. According to William J. Howard (1937), English sparrows were the most numerous and most active of all the birds in attacking an emer- gence of 17-year locusts in Indiana. ‘Although there were multi- tudes of dead and dying insects upon trees and the ground, the sparrows were very active in pursuing flying locusts. As many as three sparrows were seen to chase a single insect, and the squabble and fight characteristic of this bird usually ensued when one of the birds caught an insect.” Sparrows are often seen picking insects off the radiators of auto- mobiles where they have been caught and killed. But they can also catch many flying insects in the air—wasps, bees, flying ants, and other Hymenoptera. They are, in fact, very resourceful in their varied feeding habits. They eat the snow-white linden moths when they appear in July, and feed on the tent caterpillars and brown- tailed moths. Behavior.— The English sparrow is a noisy, boisterous, and aggres- sive bully in its relations with other species. Generally cordially hated by both birds and men, its record is almost wholly black. It drives bluebirds, swallows, and wrens from their nesting boxes by force, or by preempting them in advance. Some of these rightful tenants of the boxes can resist eviction by an aggressive pair of sparrows, but they cannot withstand mob violence when the spar- rows attack in superior numbers, as they sometimes do; then the gentler birds give up the fight and retire to find more peaceful quarters elsewhere. But the box-dwellers are not the only sufferers; the spar- rows seize and occupy the bottleneck nests of cliff swallows, the open nests of barn swallows, and even the burrows of bank swallows. It was thought that the English sparrow might meet its match in the house finch in Colorado, but such was not to be. Bergtold (1913) writes: The loss of nests, eggs and young of the House Finch through direct destruc- tion by the English Sparrow is very large. It was 16% in some of the nests studied by the writer, and, moreover, this 16% loss of eggs does not include the very large potential loss of House Finch eggs and young brought about by ENGLISH SPARROW 1 destruction of nests by English Sparrows before the House Finch eggs are laid in them. * * * The writer has personally witnessed English Sparrows going into the House Finches’ nests, and has seen them throw out the young, these nestlngs having the heads pecked open by the Sparrows before they were thrown out. The House Finch will often put up a mild fight against the invaders, giv- ing at the same time a very characteristic squeak but the Finch is almost invar- iably beaten in these battles. In many years’ observations on this phase of the Finch question, the writer has but once seen a Finch whip a Sparrow. The sparrows destroy the eggs and young of the birds that nest in boxes and throw out the nesting material, also those of the other birds mentioned above. Nests of birds as large as robins have been robbed of their eggs and young. On the other hand, an English sparrow has been seen by reliable observers to defend the nest and feed the young of a pair of red-eyed vireos, together with the parent birds (see The Cardinal, vol. 2, pp. 191-192). We often see one or more sparrows trailing a robin or a starling on the lawn, seeming to know that the larger birds are more successful than they would be in digging out worms or grubs, and they look for a chance to steal their food. They are such aggressive and persistent bluffers that they sometimes succeed, by force of numbers or by strategy. They show their intelligence and ingenuity in other ways. John Burroughs (1879), with the remark that “it is too good not to be true” tells the following story: A male bird brought to his box a large, fine goose feather, which is a great find for a sparrow and much coveted. After he had deposited his prize and chattered his gratulations over it, he went away in quest of his mate. His next-door neighbor, a female bird, seeing her chance, quickly slipped in and seized the feather; and here the wit of the bird came out, for instead of carrying it into her own box she flew with it to a near tree and hid it in a fork of the branches, then went home, and when her neighbor returned with his mate, was innocently employed about her own affairs. The proud male, finding his feather gone, came out of his box in a high state of excitement, and, with wrath in his manner and accusa- tion on his tongue, rushed into the cote of the female. Not finding his goods and chattels there as he expected, he stormed around a while, abusing everybody in general and his neighbor in particular, and then went away as if to repair the loss. As soon as he was out of sight, the shrewd thief went and brought the feather home and lined her own domicile with it. Mr. Brackbill says in his notes: ‘‘An instance of real ingenuity was witnessed at a fountain and pool in Mount Vernon Place, in down- town Baltimore. On a flat rim of this pool, covered by water to an ideal depth, sparrows were accustomed to gather and bathe. One day the pool was drained, leaving the birds only some steep-sided bowls on a surrounding wall as watering places. From the rims of these they could lean forward and bathe their heads and shoulders, but the water’s depth quite precluded complete baths in normal fashion. The birds got their baths nonetheless. To wash their hind 18 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 parts they turned around and tipped slightly backward. And to wash their breasts and underparts generally they flew very low across the water, dipping down into it one to several times on the way. Some contrived even better baths by swimming flutteringly the whole way across the bowls. “An instance of drinking was noted at a building where an exhaust pipe projected through the wall a yard or so above the ground. The pipe was about an inch in diameter and it projected from the wall just about an inch. Water was dripping from it, and although the drip was not fast enough to form even a small puddle on the ground, the sparrows of the neighborhood had solved the problem of getting a drink. Every now and then one would come flying, alight on the bit of exposed pipe, bend downward—sometimes in a very awkward position—and drink the drops as they collected on the lip of the pipe. Four birds drank in this way during ten minutes that I watched.” English sparrows will roost for the night wherever they can find a little shelter in, under, or about buildings or other human structures, under electric light hoods, or in dense evergreen trees. But they often huddle together for mutual protection where there is no shelter whatever, just as they did in the big city roosts, when the sparrows lived in the cities. On Chestnut Street, the principal business street in Philadelphia, writes J. P. Norris (1891), stood an old-fashioned dwelling, the only one on the street: “On the lower side of the house, just inside the brick wall that encloses the garden, stands a tree about forty feet high, with many branches; and every afternoon the English Sparrows roost here literally by thousands. Every branch is covered with them, and they are huddled together as close as they can sit. ‘To count them all would be impossible, but I have seen over fifty on one branch. A long wall of an adjoining store is covered with ivy and Virginia Creeper, and this forms a convenient roosting place for those birds that cannot find places on the tree.” The spectacular sparrow roost that formerly existed in the King’s Chapel burying ground in the center of Boston is well described by Dr. Townsend (1909). The birds— frequent the place throughout the year but are decidedly less numerous in the spring months and most numerous during the fall and winter. Thus on Novem- ber 25, 1905, between 4 and 5 p. m., I estimated that about 3,000 were in this place in five trees. The other two trees were empty. On February 20, 1906, on a mild pleasant day, when the sun set 5:24 p.m., the roost was studied from the near-by City Hall. The roosting trees seen from above looked as if their limbs had been whitewashed and the ground and grass beneath were similarly affected. The first arrivals appear at 3:45 p.m., about a dozen in all. At 4 the birds are coming singly and in small groups alighting in the trees but frequently changing from place to place, chirping continuously and fighting for positions. At 4:05 a ENGLISH SPARROW 19 flock of 12 fly swiftly and directly to one tree; 4:10 p.m.: there are now about 150 sparrows present, but new ones are coming sailing in with wings wide spread from over or between the surrounding high buildings. They fly with astonishing swiftness and directness, projected as it were from space directly into the roost— is it the city rush and scramble for position? At 4:15 p.m. It is now raining birds. I have seen only one alight on a building before entering the roost; they are in too much of a hurry to get there. The trees are a scene of great activity and the noise rises above the roar of the city’s streets. The birds are crowding together in the trees, constantly fighting and flying about as they are forced from their perches. At 4:30 the birds are still coming, but by 4:45 there is a noticeable diminution in the numbers of the coming birds and by 5 o’clock the movement has ceased with the exception of a few stragglers. Many are now spreading their wings and tails and composing themselves for sleep. At 5:30 the roost is still noisy but many are fast asleep, and before long all is quiet. He describes the morning awakening as follows: On November 26, 1905, I watched the King’s Chapel roost wake up and depart about its day’s business. All were asleep and quiet until 6 o’clock when the first chirp was heard, while the stars were still shining, and the first movement took place at 6:05, when a sparrow flew from one branch to another. The sleeping ones had their heads depressed in front, or the head turned around with the bill concealed in the feathers of the back. A sudden general chirping begins at 6:07 and a few buzz about from branch to branch. The chirping swells into a continu- ous volume of sound, not the chorus of the spring, but a confused conversational chirping noise as if all were talking at once. Birds buzz about with rapid wing vibrations, suggestive of hummingbirds. The first one flies off in an unsteady way as if still half asleep at 6:12. The sound grows louder, although the majority still appear to be asleep. Some are stretching their wings and preening their feathers. The stars are nearly gone. At 6:20 no. 2 flies off uncertainly. 6:25. Now there is greater noise and activity. Many are flying about and a dozen or more have left. All awake seem to enjoy spreading their tails. A considerable proportion sleep on through the hubbub. There is very little fighting compared with the evening. 6:26. Now the birds are leaving constantly. 6:27. They are leaving in bands of 15 or 20 at atime. 6:30a.m. The stream of outgoers, mostly down Tremont Street to the north, is now continuous and too great to count. The remaining birds are noisy in the extreme, flying about vigorously and filling up the empty trees. 6:35 a.m. It is now broad daylight and the birds are flying off like bees, but more or less in waves. A few still sleep on undisturbed, The sun rose about 6:50 and by that time doubtless all or nearly all of the birds had gone. Voice.—Little can be said in favor of the English sparrow’s voice, except that it expresses cheerfulness under adverse weather conditions, indicates abundant energy and aggressiveness, but the incessant chirp- ing and chattering that one hears on spring mornings often seems monotonous and soon becomes tiresome. Dr. Townsend (1909) describes it very well as follows: The “chorus” begins from twenty to thirty minutes before sunrise in April, May and June on bright days—fifteen or twenty minutes later on cloudy days— and lasts in full volume nearly an hour. A few scattering chirps are first heard from the early ones, but the multitudes on vines and trees and house-tops soon take up the theme, and the din is almost deafening. The chief note is chis-ick or tsee-up monotonously repeated, with various modifications, for the most part high pitched 20 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 and ear racking, but occasionally deeper and almost melodious. Certain indi- viduals repeat notes or even series of notes that are not unattractive, and may even be called musical. These are not common but may be heard every spring, and, on mild days, even as early as January. At the height of the morning chorus, for such it must be called, there is at times a distinct rhythm, caused by some of the birds keeping time. This chirping rhythm I have frequently tried to count but generally without success, for each bird appears to chirp manfully on his own hook without regard to time. I have, however, sometimes found its rate to be 60 or 70 times a minute, slowing down to 40 on hot days. In this respect the Sparrow differs directly from the cold blooded insect that sings faster the hotter the weather. Ernest Thompson Seton (1901) tells a remarkable story of an Eng- lish sparrow that was hatched in a cage by canaries and learned to sing. It escaped and was frequently heard to sing “a loud sweet song, much like that of a Canary.” I wrote to Thompson-Seton, to learn if the story was just pure fiction. He replied that he met the bird many years ago in Toronto, and that “in the main the story is founded on fact,” but he “expounded and developed the details.” The story, “A Street Troubadour,” is attractively written and well worth reading as a character study. We have other evidences of singing ability. Dr. Dayton Stoner (1942) writes of a versatile captive English sparrow: “This unique sparrow possessed various types of vocal ability which he utilized to express insistence concerning certain kinds of food, absence of the cage cover at night, general well-being, disgust and the like. More- over, he acquired a remarkable proficiency in singing ability through the medium of two canaries which were his companions—in separate cages—for about six years. His imitations of the ‘rolling’ notes of the one and the ‘chopping’ notes of the other were sometimes so well done as to deceive even his mistress.’”’ Furthermore, Tilford Moore has sent me the following note: ‘Sept. 15, 1941. I heard a male in the honeysuckle beside my bed actually sing today. He was uttering the usual harsh chatterings of his kind, but about once a minute he’d substitute a short song for a squawk. The song was a thin and squeaky but rather pretty one, with tut-tut at beginning and end. Not a warble, it varied over several notes, was rather like an incomplete song which I have heard from a white-throat.” Field marks.—This impudent and aggressive little pest is easily recognized by its behavior, its familiarity, and its noisy chirps and chatter. The male is a handsome fellow in fresh, clean plumage, with his black bib, gray crown, and conspicuous markings of chestnut, black, and white about the head. The female is more soberly colored, lacking the conspicuous markings about the head, but similar to the male above and below. ENGLISH SPARROW y Al | Enemies.—The