300 FINCHES, SPARROWS, ETC. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Nest, of grasses, on the ground or in bushes. Eggs, four to five, pale green— 
     
     ish blue, speckled and spotted with bay, especially at the larger end, ‘90 x '62 
     
    
   
   
    
     (Davie). 
     
    

    
     This is one of the aristocrats of the family. Its size and its hand- 
     
     some markings at once distinguish it from its congeners, and are sure 
     
     to attract attention. Though its season of love and music is spent in 
     
     the far north, it often favors us with selections of its melodies as it 
     
     rests in thickets and hedgerows while slowly passing through our 
     
     country on its northward pilgrimage. Its usual song is like the latter 
     
     half of the White—throat’s familiar refrain, repeated a number of times 
     
     with a peculiar sad cadence and in a clear, soft whistle that is charac- 
     
     teristic of the group. It resembles its relatives also in singing its 
     
    
   
   
    
     sweetest songs in the woods, sometimes during the darkest hours of 
     
     the night. ERNEST E. THOMPSON. 
     
    
   
   
    
     558. Zonotrichia. albicolns ( Gmel.). erE-rnnounn Srnnnow; 
     
     . PEABODY—BIRD. Ad.—A yellow line before the eye; bend of the wing yellow; 
     
     center of the crown with a white stripe bounded on either side by much wider 
     
     black stripes; a white stripe from the eye passes backward along the side of 
     
     the head; back rufous or rufous—hrown, streaked with black and slightly 
     
     margined with whitish ; rump grayish brown; greater and middle wing-cov— 
     
     erts tipped with white; tail grayish brown; under parts grayish, more so on 
     
     the breast; throat with a square white patch; belly whitish; flanks and 
     
     under tail-coverts tinged with grayish brown. Im.——Ycliow before the eye, 
     
     and on the bend of the wing duller; crown streaks brownish ashy and mixed 
     
     chestnut and black, instead of white and black; throat patch less sharply 
     
     defined. L., 6'74; W., 289; T., 286; B., '44. 
     
    

    
     Range—Eastern North America; breeds from northern Michigan, and 
     
     occasionally Massachusetts, northward to Labrador: winters from Massachu- 
     
     setts to Florida. 
     
    

    
     Washington, very common W. V., Sept. 28 to May 20. Sing Sing, com- 
     
     mon T. V., Apl. 10 to May 21 ; Sept. 20 to Oct. 80; a few winter. Cambridge, 
     
     very common T. V., Apl. 25 to May 15; Oct. 1 to Nov. 10; a few winter. 
     
    

    
     Nest, of coarse. grasses, rootlets, moss, strips of bark, etc., lined with finer 
     
     grasses, on the ground or in bushes. Eggs, four to five, bluish white, finely 
     
     and evenly speckled or heavily and irregularly blotched with pale rufous— 
     
     brown, '82 x '60. 
     
    
   
   
    
     In September, when the hedgerows and woodland undergrowths 
     
     begin to rustle with Sparrows, J uncos, and Towhees, I watch eagerly 
     
     for the arrival of these welcome fall songsters. 
     
    

    
     There is little in their modest appearance to tell one, as they feed 
     
     on the ground near their haunts, of their vocal powers, and one might 
     
     be pardoned for believing that a feeble tseep was their only note. I 
     
     whistle a bar or two of greeting in their own language. They are evi- 
     
     dently puzzled, but make no reply, for it has apparently been agreed 
     
     among themselves that singing shall not begin for at least a week after