ON BOSTON COMMON. 17 
bird and that of the gray-cheeked thrush} were 
heard all along the ridge from Mount Clinton 
to Mount Washington. The finest bird con- 
cert I ever attended in Boston was given on 
Monument Hill by a great chorus of fox-col- 
ored sparrows, one morning in April. A high 
wind had been blowing during the night, and 
the moment I entered the Common I discovered 
that there had been an extraordinary arrival of 
birds, of various species. The parade ground 
was full of snow-birds, while the hill was cov- 
ered with fox-sparrows, — hundreds of them, I 
thought, and many of them in full song. It 
was a royal concert, but the audience, I am 
sorry to say, was small. It is unfortunate, in 
some aspects of the case, that birds have never 
learned that a matinée ought to begin at two 
o’clock in the afternoon. 
These sparrows please me by their lordly 
treatment of their European cousins. One in 
particular, who was holding his ground against 
three of the Britishers, moved me almost to the 
point of giving him three cheers. 
Of late a few crow blackbirds have taken to 
1 My identification of Turdus Alicie was based entirely upon 
the song, and so, of course, had no final scientific value. It was 
confirmed a few weeks later, however, by Mr. William Brewster, 
who took specimens. (See Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological 
Club, January, 1883, p. 12.) Prior to this the species was not 
known to breed in New England. 
2 
