310 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



see the tree sparrows wash themselves, standing in the 

 puddles and tossing the water over themselves. Minott 

 says they wade in to where it is an inch deep and then 

 " splutter splutter," throwing the water over them. 

 They have had no opportunity to wash for a month, per- 

 haps, there having been no thaw. The song sparrow did 

 not go off with them. 



Feb. 2, 1858. Still rains, after a rainy night with a 

 little snow, forming slosh. As I return from the post- 

 office, I hear the hoarse, robin-like chirp of a song spar- 

 row on Cheney's ground, and see him perched on the 

 topmost twig of a heap of brush, looking forlorn and 

 drabbled and solitary in the rain. 



March 18, 1858. 7 A.M. — By river. 



Almost every bush has its song sparrow this morning, 

 and their tinkling strains are heard on all sides. You 

 see them just hopping under the bush or into some 

 other covert, as you go by, turning with a jerk this way 

 and that, or they flit away just above the ground, which 

 they resemble. It is the prettiest strain I have heard yet. 



June 13, 1858. I see a song sparrow's nest here in a 

 little spruce just by the mouth of the ditch.* It rests on 

 the thick branches fifteen inches from the ground, firmly 

 made of coarse sedge without, lined with finer, and then 

 a little hair, small within, — a very thick, firm, and port- 

 able nest, an inverted cone ; — four eggs. They build 

 them in a peculiar manner in these sphagnous swamps, 

 elevated apparently on account of water and of differ- 

 ent materials. Some of the eggs have quite a blue 

 ground. 



^ [At Ledum Swamp, in Concord.] 



