THE SONG SPARROW 29 
plane of a woodpile, and passed through a fence 
and across a vegetable garden into an asparagus 
bed, in which miniature forest the little traveler 
received and ate the moth. 
“ Another nest was built on the bank of a 
brook on the farther side of a road. Out of 
this nest I saw two little fellows coaxed with 
these snow-white moths, and led across the dusty 
road into a hedge.”’ 
One or two experiences of this kind are suff- 
cient reward for a good deal of patient obser- 
vation. The singer of this pair of birds, my 
correspondent says, had ten distinct songs, one 
of them exceedingly beautiful and peculiar. 
The song sparrow’s nest is usually built on 
the ground, and the bird is one of several kinds 
that are known indiscriminately by country 
people as ground sparrows. 
Song sparrows seem to be of a pretty nervous 
disposition, to judge from their behavior. One 
of their noticeable characteristics is a twitching, 
up-and-down, “ pumping” motion of the tail, as 
they dash into cover on being disturbed. 
People who live in the Southern States see 
these birds only in the cooler part of the year, 
but must have abundant opportunity to hear 
them sing as spring approaches. 
