28 Twelve Months With 



"There is a bird I know so well, 



It seems as if he must have sung 

 Beside my crib when I was young; 



Before I knew the way to spell 



The name of even the smallest bird, 

 His gentle-joyful song I heard. 



Now see if you can tell, my dear, 



What bird it is that every year, 



Sings 'Sweet sweet sweet very merry cheer'." 



A song sparrow sang this refrain a few evenings 

 since from a shrub in a vacant lot adjoining mine, 

 in a sort of mixed chorus with two robins. The 

 robins were singing together their usual hymn- 

 like, warbling song, and the song sparrow broke 

 in at regular intervals with this sweet, musical 

 refrain, in the nature of an obligate, and the 

 chorus they made was far superior to the Met- 

 ropolitan Opera, and to be had for the mere 

 listening! 



The beautiful white-throated sparrows arrive 

 near my back fence about the i8th of April, and 

 flit about quietly in the grass and leaves and 

 underbrush, emitting their characteristic low 



whistle: J J ^3 and shyly scratch- 



ing with both feet together among the old dead 

 leaves. Harrison Smith Morns' "Lonely-Bird" 

 well describes this beautiful sparrow: 



"O dappled throat of white ! Shy, hidden bird ! 

 Perched in green dimness of the dewy wood, 

 And murmuring, in that lonely, lover mood, 



Thy heart-ache, softly heard, 

 Sweetened by distance, over land and lake." 



