_Fringilla socialis_, WILSON, Am. Orn. II, 1810, 127, pl. xvi, f. 5.—AUD. Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 21; V, 517, pl. civ. _Spizella socialis_, BON. List, 1838.—IB. Conspectus, 1850, 480.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 473.—COOPER & SUCKLEY, 203.—SAMUELS, 320. _Emberiza socialis_, AUD. Syn. 1839.—IB. Birds Am. III, 1841, 80, pl. clxv. _Spinites socialis_, CABANIS, Mus. Hein. 1851, 133. SP. CHAR. Rump, back of neck, and sides of neck and head, ashy. Interscapular region with black streaks, margined with pale rufous. Crown continuous and uniform chestnut. Forehead black, separated in the middle by white. A white streak over the eye to nape, and a black one from the base of the bill through and behind the eye. Lores dusky. Under parts unspotted whitish, tinged with ashy on the sides and across the upper breast. Tail-feathers and primaries edged with paler, not white. Two narrow white bands across the wing-coverts. Bill black. Length, 5.75; wing, nearly 3.00; tail, 2.50 (or less). _Young._ Immature birds and frequently the adult females with the cap streaked with blackish lines, the chestnut nearly or sometimes quite wanting. Birds of the year streaked beneath and on rump. The color of bill varies; sometimes entirely black throughout, sometimes very light (but never reddish as in _S. pusilla_), with all intermediate stages. There is usually, however, a dusky tinge in the upper bill, wanting in _pusilla_, and the lores are almost always more or less dusky in all stages of plumage. HAB. Eastern Province of North America; north to Great Slave Lake, and south to Orizaba, Eastern Mexico, where it is resident. Oaxaca (perhaps var. _arizonæ_), Jan. (SCL. 858, 304); Xalapa (SCL. 1859, 365); Cordova (SCL. 1856, 305); Cuba (LAWR. 1860, VII., 1269). HABITS. The common Chipping Sparrow, so familiar to all in the eastern portion of the United States, is not only one of the most abundant, but one of the most widely distributed of our North American birds. It is found from the Atlantic to the Pacific in its two races, and breeds from Georgia to the Arctic Circle. At different seasons of the year it is found in all portions of North America to Mexico. Along the Atlantic coast it nests at least as far north as New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; in the extreme northern portion of the latter Province I found it one of the most abundant birds. The late Mr. Robert Kennicott met with them in considerable numbers at Fort Resolution, on Great Slave Lake, and there he obtained quite a number of their nests, all of which were in trees or bushes, from two to three feet above the ground. These were all met with between the 1st and the 26th of June. Mr. B. R Ross also met with these birds in considerable numbers at Fort Simpson and at Fort Rae.