XXXV 



THE SONG SPARROW 



ON" my way to school and as I played in the fields I 

 was always charmed with the song of the song spar- 

 row. This is a small brown bird possibly a little less 

 heavily built than the English sparrow. The resemblance 

 in shape, size, and color is close enough so that probably 

 most of my readers would be able to recognize him as a 

 sparrow from having known his quarrelsome foreign 

 cousin. 



But with this physical likeness the resemblance ceases. 

 The English sparrow is a spiteful, quarrelsome bird with 

 anything but a musical voice. He resembles nothing so 

 much as the quarrelsome, fighting street Arabs with whom 

 he lives. He seldom does anything which is of value to 

 man but is a genuine nuisance because he is so often quar- 

 reling, fighting, or pestering some poor birds that are 

 both musical and beneficial, until it leaves his vicinity in 

 disgust. On the other hand, the song sparrow is one of our 

 gayest and sweetest song birds. One could not travel the 

 roads near my boyhood home for a quarter of a mile vrith- 

 out seeing several of these birds sitting on fence stakes, 

 the top wire of a fence, or on weeds or twigs, every one 

 singing as if his whole mission in life was to cheer pass- 

 ers by. 



247 



