THE FOX-COLORED SPARROW

IN “Wood Notes Wild,” S. P. Cheney says this song-loving Sparrow has a sweet voice and a pleasing song, which he has set to music. No Sparrow, he says, sings with a better quality of tone. A distinguished musician himself, no one was better qualified to give a final opinion upon the subject. Others have spoken in praise of it, Burroughs characterizing it as “a strong, richly modulated whistle, the finest Sparrow note I have ever heard.” Baird says, “in the spring the male becomes quite musical, and is one of our sweetest and most remarkable singers. His voice is loud, clear, and melodious; his notes full, rich, and varied; and his song is unequalled by any of this family that I have ever heard.” Mr. Torrey finds a “Thrush-like” quality in the song of the Fox Sparrow. In his “Birds in the Bush” Mr. Torrey describes an interesting contest as follows:

“One afternoon I stood still while a Fox Sparrow and a Song Sparrow sang alternately on either side of me, both exceptionally good vocalists, and each doing his best. The songs were of about equal length, and as far as theme was concerned were not a little alike; but the Fox Sparrow’s tone was both louder and more mellow than the others, while his notes were longer,—more sustained,—and his voice was ‘carried’ from one pitch to another. On the whole, I had no hesitation about giving him the palm; but I am bound to say that his rival was a worthy competitor.”

The Fox-colored Sparrow is also one of the largest and finest of his tribe, breeding from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Labrador north into Alaska; in winter it is met with south over the whole of the eastern United States to the Gulf coast. Audubon found it nesting in Labrador from the middle of June to the 5th of July. Its nest has been found in trees and on the ground in the Arctic regions, on the Yukon river in July. According to many observers, the nests are, for the most part, placed on the ground, usually concealed by the drooping branches of evergreens. They are made of grass and moss, lined with fine grass and feathers. Some nests are three or four inches in depth, strong, compact, and handsome. The eggs are three or five, oval in form, of a clayey greenish ground color, dotted with dull reddish brown and chocolate. They vary in coloration.

In the early spring the Fox Sparrow is often seen associated with small parties of Juncos, in damp thickets and roadside shrubbery; later, according to Mr. Bicknell, it takes more to woodsides, foraging on leaf-strewn slopes where there is little or no undergrowth. In the autumn it is found in hedgerows, thickets and weedy grainfields, rarely however, straying far from some thickety cover. It is a great scratcher among dead leaves, and “can make the wood rubbish fly in a way which, in proportion to its size, a barn-yard fowl could scarcely excel.”

The Sparrows are worthy of close study, many of them possessing habits of great beauty and interest.

-Nature Study Pub. Co., 1898, Chicago.