THE SONG SPARROW 249 



the song sparrow from the others by his beautiful song. 

 The song sparrow is one of the first birds to arrive in the 

 spring and one of the last to leave in the fall. In fact, 

 as far north as my old home in Southeastern Iowa they 

 sometimes stayed all winter. At intervals, when there 

 were warm days, they sang even in the winter. In fact, 

 I think I especially loved these birds because they were 

 so cheery and full of song when there were so few birds 

 about. 



I am not attempting in this story to tell the story of 

 one sparrow only, but to help you to learn about sparrows 

 in general, for they are numerous in this country. It is 

 said that on the average about every tenth bird in the 

 United States is a sparrow, and this is not necessarily 

 because of the large number of English sparrows either. 

 Most of our American sparrows, of which we have more 

 than a hundred kinds, are beneficial because they live so 

 largely on weed seeds and insects. 



Another of our most common and widely distributed 

 sparrows is the chipping sparrow, so called because of 

 the peculiar "chip, chip," which is the most common note 

 it utters. As a child I knew it as the "chip bird." You 

 will find it easy to locate one by its chipping song. 



