(_Passerella ilica_) Finch family
_Called also_: FOX-COLORED SPARROW; FERRUGINOUS FINCH;
FOXY FINCH
_Length_--6.5 to 7.25 inches. Nearly an inch longer than the
English sparrow.
_Male and Female_--Upper parts reddish brown, varied with ash
gray, brightest on lower back, wings, and tail. Bluish slate
about the head. Underneath whitish; the throat, breast, and
sides heavily marked with arrow-heads and oblong dashes of
reddish brown and blackish.
_Range_--Alaska and Manitoba to southern United States.
Winters chiefly south of Illinois and Virginia. Occasional
stragglers remain north most of the winter.
_Migrations_--March. November. Most common in the migrations.
There will be little difficulty in naming this largest, most plump and
reddish of all the sparrows, whose fox-colored feathers, rather than
any malicious cunning of its disposition, are responsible for the name
it bears. The male bird is incomparably the finest singer of its
gifted family. His faint _tseep_ call-note gives no indication of his
vocal powers that some bleak morning in early March suddenly send a
thrill of pleasure through you. It is the most welcome "glad surprise"
of all the spring. Without a preliminary twitter or throat-clearing of
any sort, the full, rich, luscious tones, with just a tinge of
plaintiveness in them, are poured forth with spontaneous abandon. Such
a song at such a time is enough to summon anybody with a musical ear
out of doors under the leaden skies to where the delicious notes issue
from the leafless shrubbery by the roadside. Watch the singer until
the song ends, when he will quite likely descend among the dead leaves
on the ground and scratch among them like any barn-yard fowl, but
somehow contriving to use both feet at once in the operation, as no
chicken ever could. He seems to take special delight in damp thickets,
where the insects with which he varies his seed diet are plentiful.
Usually the fox sparrows keep in small, loose flocks, apart by
themselves, for they are not truly gregarious; but they may sometimes
be seen travelling in company with their white-throated cousins. They
are among the last birds to leave us in the late autumn or winter. Mr.
Bicknell says that they seem indisposed to sing unless present in
numbers. Indeed, they are little inclined to absolute solitude at any
time, for even in the nesting season quite a colony of grassy
nurseries may be found in the same meadow, and small companies haunt
the roadside shrubbery during the migrations.
[Illustration: NIGHTHAWK]
[Illustration: YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO]