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Range (Lower Mississippi Valley north)

Lower Mississippi Valley north to southern Indiana and southern Illinois; west to northern Texas; east to Georgia, South and North Carolina; south in winter, in the Atlantic States, to southern Florida. Nest, of grasses, domed and cylindrical, on the ground. Eggs, three to four, pure white, 74 x 60 (Bendire, Auk, v, 1888, p. 356). FINCHES, SPARROWS, ETC.

In Florida, where this bird is not uncommon during the winter, I have found it in pine woods undergrown with turkey oaks, and not in localities frequented by P. æstivalis. Mr. Ridgway writes that in Illinois this is "emphatically a bird of open oak woods, where large white and post oaks prevail, with grass land immediately adjoining, or where the intervals between the trees consist of sward rather than undergrowth; but neglected fields, grown up to weeds, and in which dead trees are left standing, are also its favorite haunts." He speaks of its song as reminding one somewhat of the plaintive chant of the Field Sparrow, but as far sweeter and louder; "the modulation, as nearly as can be expressed in words, resembling the syllables thééééééé-thut, lut, lut, lut, the first being a rich silvery trill, pitched in a high musical key, the other syllables also metallic, but abrupt, and lower in tone." 581. Melospiza fasciata (Gmel.). SONG SPARROW. Ad.-Crown rufous-brown, with a grayish line through its center; a grayish line over the eye; a rufous-brown line from behind the eye to the nape; feathers of the back streaked with black and margined with rufous-brown and grayish; greater wing-coverts with black spots at their tips; no white wing-bars or yellow on the wing; tail rufous grayish brown, the middle feathers darker along their shafts; outer feathers shortest; sides of the throat with black or blackish streaks; breast with wedge-shaped streaks of black and rufousbrown which tend to form one larger blotch on the center; sides washed with brownish and streaked with black and rufous-brown; middle of the belly white. L., 6.30; W., 2.52; T., 2-62; B., 49.