The New Student's Reference Work/Towhee

TOWHEE

Towhee or Cheewink, member of the finch family. The bird is smaller than the robin, the color of its sides a rich, reddish chestnut, below white, upper part black, tail tipped with white. The call-notes give it its names; its song, simple and pleasing, is heard from among the branches. Favorite haunts are thicket and scrubby wood. It forages on the ground, is expert in unearthing wire-worms, beetles and larvæ, and has special liking for hairy caterpillars and potato-bugs. It nests on the ground, the nest seeming a very part of the soil, the eggs white marked with dull brown, in number four or five. The birds migrate in April, September and October, the breeding-range extending from the lower Mississippi valley and Georgia northward to Maine, Ontario and Manitoba. It sometimes is called ground-robin.