FIELD AND STUDY 



Hence its eggs or young often fall victims to the 

 sharp-eyed, all-devouring crows, as they lead their 

 clamorous broods about the summer pastures. The 

 song sparrow more frequently selects its nesting- 

 place in a grassy or mossy bank by the roadside or 

 in the orchard, wheh it does not leave the ground 

 to take to a low bush or tangle of vines on the lawn, 

 as it so frequently does. 



We have two other sparrows that are close akin 

 indeed, almost like fruit on the same tree yet 

 with clear-cut differences. I refer to the "chippie," 

 or social sparrow, and the field, or, as I prefer to 

 call it, the bush sparrow two birds that come so 

 near being duplicates of each other that in my boy- 

 hood I recognized only the one species, the chip- 

 ping sparrow, so much at home in the orchard and 

 around the dooryard. Few country persons, I fancy, 

 discriminate the two species. They are practically 

 of the same size and same manners, but differ in 

 color. The bush sparrow is more russet, has a russet 

 beak and feet and legs, and its general appearance 

 harmonizes more with country surroundings. The 

 two species differ in about the same way that the 

 town-dweller differs from his rustic brother. But in 

 the matter of song there is no comparison the 

 strain of the bush sparrow being one of the most 

 tender and musical of all our sparrow songs, while 

 that of the "chippie," or the hair-bird, as it is often 

 called, is a shuffling repetition of a single unmusical 

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