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SONG SPARROW. 67 
genuine happy ring that raises one’s spirits ; and 
when he throws up his head and sings the sweet 
song that gives him his name, you feel sure the 
world is worth living in. | 
The song sparrow’s brown coat has little beauty, 
but his dark breastpin, surrounded by brown 
streaks, sets off his light gray waistcoat to advan- 
tage; and the brown topknot that he raises when 
interested gives him a winning air of sympathetic 
attention. 
The song sparrows are not about the house as 
much as the chippies, and last summer they began 
coming for crumbs a week later in the nesting 
season than their ubiquitous cousins. Then it 
was amusing to see the business-like way in which 
they hopped about, their tails perked up and 
their wings close to their sides. There was one 
that walked like a blackbird, and when he ran it 
seemed a waste of energy — he had so much more 
to do than if he had hopped ! 
The usual note of the song sparrow is a rich 
“ tschip,’ as Thoreau gives it; but when nesting it 
has an odd thin chip that sounds so like the note 
of a young bird that it deceived me into hunting 
through the bushes when the old bird who was 
really making it was in plain sight. The spar- 
rows song is the first set song likely to attract 
your attention when listening to the birds near 
the house, and as Thoreau says, is “ more honest- 
sounding than most.” The song consists of one 
