32 EVERYDAY BIRDS 
Perhaps you will know him by this brief de- 
scription: a very small, slender sparrow, with a 
dark chestnut-red crown, a black forehead, a 
black bill, and plain — unstreaked and unspotted 
— under parts. 
His ordinary note, or call, is a chip (whence 
his name), and his song is a very dry, tuneless, 
monotonous, long-drawn chippy-chippy-chippy, 
uttered so fast as to sound almost like a trill. 
You may like the bird never so well, but if you 
have any idea of music, you will never call him a 
fine singer. What he and his mate think about 
the matter there is, of course, no telling. He 
seems to be very much in earnest, at all events. 
He is a social bird, I say. You will not have 
to go far afield or into the woods in search of 
him. If you live in any sort of country place, 
with a bit of garden and a few shrubs and fruit 
trees, a pair of chippers will be likely to find you 
out. Their nest will be built in a tree or bush, 
a small structure neatly lined with hair, and in 
due time it will contain four or five eggs, blue 
or greenish blue, with brown spots. 
Our other bird is of the chipper’s size, and, 
hike him, has unstreaked and unspotted lower 
parts. His bill is of a light color, “ reddish 
brown,” one book says, “ pale reddish,” says an- 
other. This is one of the principal marks for 
