112 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 



journey is over and they are home again for the 

 winter. 



This year (1902) the white-crowns arrived in 

 southern California, September 25th. The scout 

 who came on ahead went straight to the garden- 

 table, as if he knew he would find it ready set. 

 And so he did. We were looking for him! 

 Always the white-crowns are fearless, and may be 

 seen on our door-steps. If you leave the door 

 open in the morning, they will come in. They 

 will look you in the face and sing. They are 

 said to sing all night in Alaska. Here, of course, 

 we never hear their best songs. 



The crowned sparrows make their nests in the 

 frosty grass in the far north, a few inches above 

 the eternal ice on the cold meadows. Even there 

 insect food is abundant, though the warm sun of 

 summer does not thaw the ground many inches 

 beneath the surface. Beetles and other insects 

 wake up like their Eskimo neighbors, and come 

 out to see the daylight. It is then that the spar- 

 rows get them. Besides the insects, there are 

 fruits and seeds for sparrow-food. Last year's 

 cranberries are just thawing out of the mossy 

 meadows when the sparrows arrive from Cali- 

 fornia some time in April or May. These berries 

 are all the sweeter for their long winter under the 



