FIELD SPARROW. 
the middle of the night and give voice to a few rapid 
measures, which comes to one’s ears—to use Nuttall’s 
expression—like the reverie of a dream. But it is a 
habit of many birds, especially the Sparrows, to sing in 
the night. 
Field Sparrow This familiar bird of the rugged pasture 
pie hoe or fen is wrongly named; he is not really 
pusilla : 
L.5.ssinches 2 /eid Sparrow. He-may frequent an 
May ist old worn-out field, but the cultivated 
one is not his choice. He likes a spot more or less 
overgrown with weeds and bushes, and from thence 
usually comes his rather plaintive song. His appear- 
ance is not a distinguished one. Head decidedly red- 
brown with a gray line over the eye; sides of face, back 
of the neck, and the throat ashen gray; back ruddy 
brown streaked with black and light brownish gray; 
rump ash gray; two small whitish wing-bars on each 
wing; lower parts white washed with buff or ochre; buff 
on the breast and sides; bill conspicuously flesh-color of 
a ruddy tone; it is one of the best marks for the bird’s 
‘identification. The nest ison the ground or in a low 
bush and is similar to that of the Song Sparrow. The 
egg is white-blue strongly marked at the larger end with 
cinnamon or sepia brown. This species breeds from 
South Carolina and southern Kansas northward. 
The Field Sparrow is a gentle little creature whose 
unsophisticated character and expressive song have won 
for him a high place in the estimation of all bird-lovers. 
Only Wilson seems to have failed in properly understand- 
ing the bird, for he writes, ‘‘ It is more frequently found 
in the middle of fields and orchards than any of the 
other species, which usually lurk along hedgerows. It 
has no song, but a kind of chirruping not much differ- 
ent from the chirpings of a cricket.” Now the last 
place to which I should go for the study of this Sparrow 
would be the meadow or the orchard, and I certainly 
should not think of comparing his song with the chirp- 
ing of a cricket! Experience and opinion apparently 
differ not a little, for my best opportunity of hearing 
many Field Sparrows singing together has always been 
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