248 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
possible. Then it appeared to pick something very 
deliberately from the twigs and flew back again to the 
woodpile with a sharp, warning note. 
“That is not a belated House Wren,” said Gray Lady, 
“but the Winter Wren, his cousin, who nests from the 
northern boundaries of the states northward, but comes 
down in winter to visit us in southern New England and 
travels as far south as Florida. A brave little fellow he 
is to weather storms and cold here, and one of our three 
smallest birds, the Golden-crowned Kinglet and the 
Humming-bird being the other two. In his nesting-haunts 
he has a beautiful song; I have never heard it, but one of 
his admirers who has says that it is ‘full of trills, runs, 
and grace notes, a tinkling, rippling roundelay.’”’ 
A few minutes later it was Sarah’s turn to exclaim, as 
she pointed to a small, sparrow-like bird, perched on a 
giant stalk of seeded ragweed at the side of the lane. 
“It’s a Chippy or else a Song-sparrow,” she said, hesitat- 
ingly. ‘It’s bigger than a Chippy, and it’s got a spot on 
its breast like the Song-sparrow, only it isn’t as big. O 
dear me! I don’t think that I shall ever be sure of telling 
Sparrows apart,” she sighed. 
“To be sure a bird zs a Sparrow is a step in the right 
direction,” said Gray Lady. “I have known some one 
older than you call me to see a big Sparrow which turned 
out to be a Wood Thrush. If you will remember one thing, 
it will help you in placing the smaller birds. Look at a 
bird’s beak; if it is thick, short, and cone-shaped, the 
bird is most likely to be a Sparrow, for this family are all 
seed-eaters except in the nesting season, while insect-eating 
birds, of all families, have longer and more slender bills. 
