326 NOTES ON THE 



It arrives in the southern counties about the 1st to the 10th 

 of April and in the vicinity of Minneapolis not very far from 

 the 20th of that month, often a trifle later. 



It may be that the absence of variety and greater modula- 

 tion in the songs of the Chipping Sparrow will account for its 

 absence from the songs of the poets, but its claims to the re 

 membrances of man are second only to that of the bluebirds 

 and robins. It even exceeds either of those species in the 

 measure of confidence it manifests in coming to our very 

 thresholds for the crumbs that fall from our boards, and trip- 

 ping almost under our feet as we go about the garden or 

 through the orchards. Its song, so monotonous as it is, ought 

 to awaken our notice, for its associations are legions, reach- 

 ing back through the many summers to the adieus to our 

 very cradles. "We boys" recall the many times we used to 

 find their nests, wondering where they got all the hair there 

 was in their structure, and how they painted their eggs such a 

 beautiful, bright, bluish-green, and speckled them at the large 

 end with reddi.sh -brown and black. And when the little eggs 

 had all gone to sma.sh, and some tiny, featherless little carica- 

 tures of blind birdies had taken their places with their hide- 

 ous, yellow lined mouths constantly wide open, we were still 

 more confounded with the dawning mysteries of life. All this 

 with only a sort of a conventional protest from the confiding 

 parents, ought now to give this humble, cheerful, plainly 

 dressed sparrow a warm place in our memories. Its specific 

 scientific name affords one instance of appropriateness amongst 

 a large number, the selection of which is an impeachment to 

 claims of advacement made for the race. Adam never burd 

 ened so many of the birds with the abominations employed in 

 our scientific nomenclature of them, or he would have wanted 

 to escape from the garden of Eden earlier than he was driven 

 out. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Rump, back of neck, sides of neck and head, ashy; inter- 

 scapular 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, and a 

 black one from the base of the bill through and behind the 

 eye. Under parts unspotted whitish, tinged with ashy, especi- 

 ally 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, 3. 



Habitat, eastern North America, west to Rocky Mountains. 



