86 BIRDS AND POETS 
took to be a young male, one October morning, just 
as the sun was rising. It was pitched very low, 
like a half-forgotten air, but it was very sweet. It 
was the song of the vesper sparrow and the white- 
throat in one. In his breeding haunts he must be 
a superior songster, but he is very chary of his 
music while on his travels. 
The sparrows are all meek and lowly birds. They 
are of the grass, the fences, the low bushes, the 
weedy wayside places. Nature has denied them all 
brilliant tints, but she has given them sweet and 
musical voices. Theirs are the quaint and simple 
lullaby songs of childhood. The white-throat has 
a timid, tremulous strain, that issues from the low 
bushes or from behind the fence, where its cradle is 
hid. The song sparrow modulates its simple ditty 
as softly as the lining of its own nest. The vesper 
sparrow has only peace and gentleness in its strain. 
What pretty nests, too, the sparrows build! Can 
anything be more exquisite than a sparrow’s nest 
under a grassy or mossy bank? What care the bird 
has taken not to disturb one straw or spear of grass, 
or thread of moss! You cannot approach it and 
put your hand into it without violating the place 
more or less, and yet the little architect has wrought 
day after day and left no marks. There has been 
an excavation, and yet no grain of earth appears to 
have been moved. If the nest had slowly and 
silently grown like the grass and the moss, it could 
not have been more nicely adjusted to its place and 
surroundings. There is absolutely nothing to tell 
