TALKS WITH YOUNG OBSERVERS 295 



III 



A boy brought me a dead bird the other morning 

 which his father had picked up on the railroad. It 

 had probably been killed by striking the telegraph 

 wires. As it was a bird the like of which he had 

 never seen before, he wanted to know its name. It 

 was a wee bird, mottled gray and brown like nearly 

 all our ground birds, as the sparrows, the meadow- 

 lark, the quail: a color that makes the bird prac- 

 tically invisible to its enemies in the air above. 

 Unlike the common sparrows, its little round wings 

 were edged with yellow, with a tinge of yellow on 

 its shoulders; hence its name, the yellow- winged 

 sparrow. It has also a yellowish line over the eye. 

 It is by no means a common bird, though there are 

 probably few farms in the Middle and Eastern States 

 upon which one could not be found. It is one of the 

 birds to be looked for. Ordinary observers do not 

 see it or hear it. 



It is small, shy, in every way inconspicuous. Its 

 song is more like that of an insect than that of any 

 other of our birds. If you hear in the fields in May 

 and June a fine, stridulous song like that of a big 

 grasshopper, it probably proceeds from this bird. 

 Move in the direction of it and you will see the little 

 brown bird flit a few yards before you. For several 

 mornings lately I have heard and seen one on a dry, 

 gravelly hillock in a field. Each time he has been 

 near the path where I walk. Unless your ear is on 

 the alert you will miss his song. Amid the other 



