The Birds’ Calendar 
the European or the American favorites getting 
their renown from ‘‘ fine feathers,’’ they are at 
best only modestly attired, and the song spar- 
row and lark are severely plain. A bird’s per- 
sonality—for it has a personality very distinct, 
however circumscribed—is a complex matter, 
compounded of many qualities, among which 
plumage is one of the less important. 
The sparrows are the largest subdivision of 
the largest family of birds—the finch family. 
This family includes, besides the more typical 
finches, the sparrows, buntings, linnets, gros- 
beaks, and crossbills. As a family they may be 
called rather plain in appearance, although it is 
a rule that has many exceptions, such as the 
cardinal and rose-breasted grosbeaks and the 
goldfinches. 
The humblest as well as most numerous sec- 
tion of the family is that of the sparrows, of 
which, according to the authorities, there are 
about forty species to be found in the United 
States, a part of them in the east, and a part 
exclusively in the west. In theregion of New 
York about a dozen species may be counted, 
but in the Ramble only about half that num- 
ber. 
The sparrows are conspicuously ground-birds, 
80 
