54 WESTERN SERIES OP READERS. 



another bird, he were talking in his sleep. Even 

 his chirp is not unmusical. ~ 



While his mate is patiently sitting upon her 

 four or five speckled eggs, the singer seems never, 

 to quit his song. He remains near her, as if the 

 sound of his voice would cheer her up. And 

 when once the eggs have hatched, the two old 

 birds are seen always together, pecking in the 

 mulching beneath the trees, scratching in the 

 dead leaves, or hunting amid the foliage of low 

 shrubs. All the time they are hunting for food 

 for their little ones, they keep up that constant 

 chatter, as if it were the happiest thing in the 

 world to be obliged to scratch for a living. 

 Always their tails stick straight up, very much 

 like the tail of a wren. And they have a way of 

 jerking their tails in a sociable wa^y, as if it helped 

 on the conversation. 



We have the song-sparrows always with us, in 

 summer and winter. You see them in pairs the 

 year round, not in flocks. They love the great 

 bunches of pampas-grass so common in the gar- 

 dens of California. As you walk past the waving 

 grasses, there is a rustle and a chirp, and out flies 

 a song-sparrow. And they love the closely 

 clipped hedges as well. We have found more 

 nests in the pampas-grass and the hedges, than 



