THE SONG SPARROW AND THE CHIPPING SPARROW. 



SOME birds are like the shyest wild flowers, living 

 far from people's homes and very hard to find. 

 Others are like the buttercups and dandelions, which 

 grow everywhere on our lawns and in city parks. I 

 suppose by many people the jolly little dandelions are 

 called weeds. One bird is almost like a weed. 



Though he, too, lives along the waysides and in 

 the parks and gardens, no one would compare the 

 Song Sparrow to a weed, for he gives much pleasure by 

 singing a clear, merry song as soon as the February 

 snows have melted. All summer he sinos, and on 

 into the fall. Even in the winter,, on warm days, he 

 sometimes shows that he remembers his little summer 

 melody. 



Look at our beautiful representative opposite, as he 

 rests on the big dock weed over the water and pours 

 out his song. Would you know that he was a spar- 

 row if you had no one to help you ? 



In the first place, he is about the size of an English 

 Sparrow, though more slender, and his colors are 

 a plain gray-brown. But you have learned that a 

 female English Sparrow is also gray and brown. 

 That is true ; many sparrows have these colors, but 



