Sparrow Row 153 



nip the leaves and the wind sends them scurrying ground- 

 ward, and his coat changes, the song sparrow sits in the 

 leafless tops and still sings of the beauties that haunt his 

 memory. 



The white-crowned sparrow has not the variation in 

 his singing that the song sparrow has. He has one theme, 

 and that he has sung till perfection has been reached. I 

 never tire of the song, because It always seems to have 

 some new association or suggestion. I remember It in 

 my boyhood days,^ when the white-crowns used to come 

 trooping in with anxious chirps to roost In the thick growth 

 of the eucalyptus In front of the house. Before dark they 

 would swing on the higher branches and sing of the 

 Quaker poet, " Oh ! De-e-ar! Whit-tl-er! Whit-ti-er!" 

 And then In the darkening moments a little later would 

 come the sad refrain, " Oh! De-e-ar! De-e-ar! " And 

 as I lay by the open window sometimes in the dreamy 

 hours of the night I heard the song repeated. 



The white-crowns liked the hillside because they could 

 drop down the slope to the back yard of a friend that 

 kept a bath basin of running water and a f 'ee lunch of 

 crumbs and seeds. They came and ate all they wanted in 

 the early spring, then later on, instead of eating the food, 

 they began to carry It away. This looked suspicious, so 

 I followed them up the hill and found four little spar- 

 rows in a grass nest on the sloping bank under a small 

 dogwood. 



In order to get some pictures of the sparrows, we had 

 focused our camera on the ground where the crumbs were 

 placed and snapped the birds as they came to feed. Early 

 in the springtime the sparrows were not wild, and we got 



