SOME APRIL SPARROWS 37 
adult male plumage —as a sparrow whose head 
and neck appear to have been dipped 1 in carmine 
ink, or perhaps in pokeberry juice. His song is 
a prolonged, rapid, unbroken warble, which he 
is much given to delivering while on the wing, 
hovering ecstatically and singing as if he would 
pour out his very soul. He is a familiar bird, a 
lover of orchards and roadside trees, but is not 
so universally distributed, probably, as most of 
the other species I have named. 
In contrast with the purple finch, all the six 
sparrows here mentioned with him have brief and 
rather formal songs. Those of the fox sparrow 
and the tree sparrow bear a pretty strong resem- 
blance to each other, especially as to cadence or 
inflection; the song sparrow’s and the vesper 
sparrow’s are still more closely alike, and will 
almost certainly confuse the novice, while those 
of the field sparrow and the white-throat are each 
quite unique. 
The fox sparrow visits Massachusetts as a 
migrant only, and the same might be said of the 
white-throat, only that it breeds in Berkshire 
County and single birds are often seen in the 
eastern part of the State during the winter. The 
tree sparrow is a winter resident, going far north 
to rear its young, and the remaining four species 
are with us for the summer. 
