174 MINOR SONGSTERS. 
truly melodious, ae by one means and an- 
other its wise little author contrives to impart 
to it a very considerable variety, albeit within 
pretty narrow limits. Last spring the field 
sparrows were singing constantly from the mid- 
dle of April till about the 10th of May, when 
they became entirely dumb. Then, after a 
week in which I heard not a note, they again 
grew musical. I pondered not a little over 
their silence, but concluded that they were just 
then very much occupied with preparations for 
housekeeping. 
The bird who is called indiscriminately the 
grass finch, the bay-winged bunting, the bay- 
winged sparrow, the vesper sparrow, and I know 
not what else (the ornithologists have nick- 
named him Powcetes gramineus), is a singer 
of good parts, but is especially to be com- 
mended for his refinement. In form his music 
is strikingly like the song sparrow’s; but the 
voice is not so loud and ringing, and the two 
or three opening notes are less sharply empha- 
sized. In general the difference between the 
two songs may perhaps be well expressed by 
saying that the one is more declamatory, the 
other more cantabile ; a difference exactly such 
as we might have expected, considering the ner- 
vous, impetuous disposition of the song sparrow 
and the placidity of the bay-wing. 
