VII 
THE SONG SPARROW 
SPARROWS are of many kinds, and in a gen- 
eral way the different kinds look so much alike 
that the beginner in bird study is apt to find 
them confusing, if not discouraging. They will 
try his patience, no matter how sharp and clever 
he may think himself, and unless he is much 
cleverer than the common run of humanity, he 
will make a good many mistakes before he gets 
to the end of them. 
One of the best and commonest of them all is 
the song sparrow. His upper parts are mottled, 
of course, since he is a sparrow. His light- 
colored breast is sharply streaked, and in the 
middle of it the streaks usually run together and 
form a blotch. His outer tail-feathers are not 
white, and there is no yellow on the wings or 
about the head. These last points are mentioned 
in order to distinguish him from two other spar- 
rows with streaked breasts — the vesper sparrow 
and the savanna. 
By the middle of March song sparrows reach 
