TREE SPARROW 293 



than usual this cold and windy day : they are puffed up 

 for warmth, have added a porch to their doors, 



Jan. 6, 1857. Though there is an extremely cold, 

 cutting northwest wind, against which I see many trav- 

 ellers turning their backs, and so advancing, I hear and 

 see an unusual numberof merry little tree sparrows about 

 the few weeds that are to be seen. They look very chip- 

 per, flitting restlessly about and jerking their long tails. 



Oct. 13, 1857. See a pretty large flock of tree spar- 

 rows, very lively and tame, drifting along and pursuing 

 each other along a bushy fence and ditch like driving 

 snow. Two pursuing each other would curve upward 

 like a breaker in the air and drop into the hedge again. 



Nov. 20, 1857. The hardy tree sparrow has taken 

 the place of the chipping and song sparrow, so much 

 like the former that most do not know it is another. 

 His faint lisping chip will keep our spirits up till an- 

 other spring. 



Jan. 6, 1858. The North River ^ is not frozen over. 

 I see tree sparrows twittering and moving with a low 

 creeping and jerking motion amid the chenopodium in 

 a field, upon the snow, so chubby or puffed out on ac- 

 count of the cold that at first I took them for the arctic 

 birds, but soon I see their bright-chestnut crowns and 

 clear white bars; as the poet says, "a thousand feeding 

 like one," ^ — though there are not more than a dozen 

 here. 



Jan. 7, 1858. P. M. — I see some tree sparrows feed- 

 ing on the fine grass seed above the snow, near the road 



1 [The Assabet, or North Branch of the Concord River.] 



2 [Wordsworth said, '' There are forty feeding like one."] 



