joj3 Moore, Tfo Fox Sparrow as a Songster. IS.) 



of the phrase, and yet thai one was sung very soft, while the others 

 were propelled wit h the same power they had been in June. Id 

 connection with this I might mention an incident, which may or 

 may not be considered evidence, though it does prove how birds are 

 influenced by songs about them. I had been endeavoring to get 



near enough to record the softer tones of the shy author of fragment 

 I . This bird and some of his song-group not recorded, were singing 

 the central phrase in a peculiar jerky fashion, giving the first, note 

 twice as much time as the second. After a few minutes a new 

 SOngSter entered the gTOUp, who sang these three notes in a hoarse, 

 hard tone and in lower pitch (sec record l.\), and sang no other 

 notes whatever. Stealing up, I was astonished to see a Robin 

 Uttering the rasping sounds. Instantly he flew away to the next 

 clump of trees and sang the rollicking soil"' of his kind, hut still in 

 hoarse quality. 



To me the Fox Sparrow stands out as the singer of joy. Many 

 birds are of this kind, hut few are to such a degree ;is this inhabitant 

 of the stunted woodlands of the North. The musical construction 

 indicates it, for instance the dancing rhythm, the major keys, 

 and the speed with which it fairly shoots through the central 

 phrase. Hut deeper than these are certain qualities in his physical 

 being and character, which make for happiness: his robustness and 

 virility, his excessive activity in all his waking hours. As evidence 

 of his energy it has heen stated that he sometimes scratches with 

 both feet in concert, hut my observations indicate that he always 

 does this and that this accounts for the clatter he makes among 

 the leaves. At any rate his energy is quite as strenuous as that 

 of his cousin, the Chewink, whether he is tossing the leaves in 

 search of food or defying the northern fog with his buoyant song, 

 ruder no circumstances is he depressed! Evidence of this we 

 obtained repeatedly in the Magdalens. Most every day it rained 

 and even when the sun shone, it was a common occurrence for fog 

 to creep in from the sea and resume full sway. Other birds Stopped 



singing, but not the Fox Sparrow! His song rang out just as buoy- 

 ant and golden as when sunlit ; indeed there was a suppressed 

 eagerness about it, as if it were contesting the supremacy of the 

 mist. Now this is surely optimism and, when one takes him all in 

 all, it is as an optimist thai he attains highest rank. As such one 



