Page:Ornithological biography, or an account of the habits of the birds of the United States of America, vol 2.djvu/216



This is another of those remarkable species which pass unobserved from the Mexican dominions and some of the West India Islands, to the middle portions of our Atlantic States. Not one of the species have I ever met with in Louisiana, the Floridas, any of the other Southern States, or those west of the Alleghany range ; while from Maryland to Maine it is found in considerable numbers, and is not uncommon in Penn- sylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. In aU the States it prefers the neighbourhood of the coast and a light sandy soil. It arrives in the latter districts about the 10th of May, and throws itself into the open newly-ploughed fields, and those covered with the valuable red clover. It is never found in the woodlands. Its food consists of such insects and larvae as are found on the ground, together with the seeds of grasses and other plants.

Its flight is low, short, and performed by a kind of constant tremor of the wings, resembling that of a young bird. It alights on the tops of low bushes, fence-rails, and tall grasses, to sing its unmusical ditty, composed of a few notes weakly enunciated at intervals, but sufficing to manifest its attachment to its mate. Almost unregarded, it raises two broods in the season, perhaps three when it has chosen the warmer sandy soils in the vicinity of the sea, where it is evidently more abundant than in the interior of the country.

The nest of the Yellow-winged Sparrow is as simple as its owner is innocent and gentle. It is placed on the ground, and is formed of light dry grasses, with a scanty lining of withered fibrous roots and horse hair. The female deposits her first egg about the 20th of May. The eggs are four or five, of a dingy white, sprinkled with brown spots. The young follow their parents on the ground for a short time, after which they separate and search for food singly. This species, indeed, never congregates, as almost all others of its tribe do, before they depart from us, but the individuals seem to move off in a sulky mood, and in so concealed a "way, that their winter quarters are yet unknown.