VII. 



THE SONG-SPARROW. 



THE American song- sparrow is a peculiar lover of old 

 fields where Nature is fast reasserting herself after the tem- 

 porary rule of man. The tumbling, lichen -patched stone 

 fences ; the gray cattle- paths diverging from the muddy 

 bar-way to those parts of the pasture where the grass is 

 sweetest ; the weedy banks of the sluggish brook wind- 

 ing indolently among mossy bowlders and tangled thickets 

 and patches of fragrant herbage are all congenial to it, 

 and are its chosen resort. Yet it is so common throughout 

 most of the United States that you may find it almost any- 

 where skulking about the currant and raspberry bushes 

 in the village gardens ; taking a riotous bath in some pool 

 by the roadside, about whose rim, perhaps, the ice still lin- 

 gers ; hastening to the top of a forest -tree to plume its 

 dripping feathers, and shake off at once the crystal water 

 and a crystal song. 



Our favorite is the very first bird to greet us in the 



