ON BOSTON COMMON. 17 



bird and that of the gray-cheeked thrush l 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 matinee 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 Alicice 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 



