THE SONG-SPARROW. 173 



another's illustration, it is as though he said " press-press- 

 PRESS- BY -TEEEE-RiAN-m/i/" His clear tenor, the gur- 

 gling, bubbling alto of the blackbirds, the slender purity 

 of the bluebird's soprano, and the solid basso profundo of 

 the frogs, with the accompaniment of the April wind pip- 

 ing on the bare reeds of winter, or the drumming of rain- 

 drops, form the naturalist's spring quartette as pleasing, if 

 not as grand, as the full chorus of early June. 



The song of the sparrow varies in different individuals, 

 and often changes with the season. A single bird has been 

 observed through several successive summers to sing nine 

 or ten different sets of notes, usually uttering them one 

 after another in the same order over arid over. Careful 

 attention will show almost any of our songsters to vary 

 their melodies from time to time, but none have greater in- 

 dividuality than our subject. " Last season," writes John 

 Burroughs, " the whole summer through, one sung about 

 my grounds like this : swee-e-t, swee-e-t, sweet, bitter. Day 

 after day, from May to September, I heard this strain, 

 which I thought a simple but very profound summing up 

 of life, and wondered where the little bird had learned it so 

 quickly. The present season I heard another with a song 

 equally original, but not so easily worded. Among a large 

 troop of them in April, my Attention was attracted to one 



