whistles, lasting for a minute or two, 

 and often repeated. It is a quiet, un- 

 obtrusive strain much like the bird 

 itself; not likely to be noticed until 

 you are near the bird, or have learned 

 to recognize the song and have your 

 ears set to catch it. It is not a re- 

 markable vocal performance, but is 

 full of domesticity and sweetness. It 

 is by no means the first bird-song you 

 are likely to become acquainted with. 

 The operatic performances of the 

 brown thrasher, the ringing call of 

 the wood-thrush, or the strong-voiced 

 cheery song of the robin from the tree- 

 top, are likely to attract the attention 

 much sooner. It is as if the Song 

 Sparrow had in mind one, not very 

 far away in mind, and sang directly 

 to one set of ears. While these other 

 gay troubadours, conscious of a large 

 audience of susceptible shes scattered 

 about here and there, amid the leafy 

 coverts within the compass of his 

 voice, puts forth the lures of his most 

 finished song to woo them one or all. 



But the most attractive feature of 

 the Song Sparrow's strain is its wear- 

 ing quality; as something befitting the 

 bird's constant nature. The bird has 

 two full tides of song: one in spring, 

 and another, not so pronounced, in 

 autumn; but besides this, you may 

 hear him singing almost every time of 

 the year, even in the coldest days of 

 winter, if the weather is bright, the 

 song of this brave bird can be heard 

 coming from among the tangled weeds. 



"Up to the level of each day's most 

 quiet need," is after all a high level, 

 harder to reach and keep than many a 

 jutting peak of special occasion, but 

 not so conspicuous in the eyes of the 

 world. And this is the level that the 

 Song Sparrow has reached and kept. 

 He does not lavishly spend all his 

 music in an extravagant rapturous 

 courtship, and then forget that he ever 

 knew how to sing, as many bipeds 

 both feathered and otherwise, are so 



likely to do, and the bobolink's short- 

 lived rapture, and the Spanish sere- 

 nade business seem to have little at- 

 traction for him. Just as people have 

 always associated the dove and olive 

 branch with the thought of peace, one 

 who knows them both can hardly 

 help associating the Song Sparrow 

 and the little speedwell, which puts 

 out its shy blossoms the year round 

 in sheltered nooks, as the emblem of 

 constancy. Both remind us of one 

 of the bravest and gentlest of singers, 

 who sang clear and unwavering 

 through sullen and gloomy days, 

 through days of dust and shadows. 



As for the Sparrow, he seems to 

 have the distinct mission of making 

 waste places glad. Hardly a patch of 

 rank weeds, hardly an old brush pile 

 or neglected edge of ditch or over- 

 grown fence-row but resounds with his 

 cheerful music, and here without ask- 

 ing for a day of vacation he toils for 

 the farmer the whole year around at 

 one of the finest miracles of alchemy, 

 transmuting noxious weed-seeds into 

 song. 



Every one who has seen it, of 

 course, remembers that picture, so 

 wonderfully fitting and so finely sym- 

 bolical, in Vedder's illustrations of the 

 Rubaiyat, the bird with uplifted head 

 and voice singing from the top of the 

 skull. And although the artist was not 

 thinking of any real bird or real skull, 

 any more than we when we look at it, 

 but simply of the symbols for which 

 they stand ; although the thing tlie 

 picture brings is simply an illuminated 

 and concentrated glimpse of the things 

 signified, and the bird pictured there is 

 too subtle to be caged in our zoolo- 

 gies, I feel sure if we could only man- 

 age to get it there, and manage to 

 run it down with our analytical key, 

 our search would end up with a de- 

 scription of Melospisa fasciata, the 

 Song Sparrow. 



H. Walton Clark. 



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