SONG-BIRDS. Song Sparrow 



Nest : Location variable ; on ground or in low bush. 



Eggs : Grayish white, spotted, marked, and clouded with browns and 



lavender. 

 Bange : Eastern United States to the Plains. 



Tlie Song Sparrow is the darling among the Song-birds ; 

 the Goldfinch's gay coat, the Bluebird's confidential mur- 

 mur, or the melody of the Thrushes cannot rival him in our 

 affections, even though they may possess superior qualities. 

 Plain as his coat is, he carries his identity in the little 

 black streaks that form two spots on his breast, and all the 

 year we may hope to hear his simple domestic ballad. 

 Thoreau says : " Some birds are poets and sing all summer. 

 They are the true singers. Any man can write verses in 

 the love season. We are most interested in those birds that 

 sing for the love of the music, and not of their mates ; who 

 meditate their strains and amuse themselves with singing ; 

 the birds whose strains are of deeper sentiment." 



This is the Song Sparrow. He is the most constant singer 

 among our northern birds ; he has other songs in his reper- 

 toire beside love-songs, even though he excels in these, his 

 later efforts lacking their variety. He sings to you from 

 the snow-powdered trees in February, to keep up your 

 spirits. In March he comes out on a bush and tells you 

 that the buds are swelling and that it is really spring. In 

 April, May, and June he is in an ecstasy ; he sings to his 

 mate, to the earth, to the sky, and to you, varying his theme 

 until the simple melody of three notes and an appoggiatura 

 is lost in endless changes. 



In July his song loses quality, and August heat drives 

 him, somewhat discouraged, to moult in bushy seclusion, but 

 does not wholly silence him. With middle September he 

 emerges and begins anew, greeting the migrating birds as 

 they return ; and all through October his notes sound clearly 

 above the rustling leaves, and some morning he comes to 

 the dogwood by the arbour and announces the first frost in 

 a song that is more direct than that in which he told of 

 spring. While the chestnuts fall from their velvet nests, 

 he is singing in the hedge ; but Avhen the brush heaps burn 



157 



