ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SONG-BIRDS 121 



the little bush sparrow, suddenly projected upon 

 the silence of the fields or of the evening twilight, 

 and delighting the ear as a beautiful scroll delights 

 the eye! The white-crowned, the white-throated, 

 and the Canada sparrows sing transiently spring and 

 fall; and I have heard the fox sparrow in April, 

 when his song haunted my heart like some bright, 

 sad, delicious memory of youth, — the richest and 

 most moving of all sparrow-songs. 



Our wren- music, too, is superior to anything of 

 the kind in the Old World, because we have a 

 greater variety of wren- songsters. Our house wren 

 is inferior to the British house wren, but our marsh 

 wren has a lively song; while our winter wren, in 

 sprightliness, mellowness, plaintiveness, and execu- 

 tion, is surpassed by but few songsters in the world. 

 The summer haunts of this wren are our high, cool, 

 northern woods, where, for the most part, his music 

 is lost on the primeval solitude. 



The British flycatcher, according to White, is a 

 silent bird, while our species, as the phoebe-bird, 

 the wood pewee, the kingbird, the little green fly- 

 catcher, and others, all have notes more or less 

 lively and musical. The great crested flycatcher 

 has a harsh voice, but the pathetic and silvery note 

 of the wood pewee more than makes up for it. 

 White says the golden-crowned wren is not a song- 

 bird in Great Britain. The corresponding species 

 here has a pleasing though not remarkable song, which 

 is seldom heard, however, except in its breeding 

 haunts in the north. But its congener, the ruby- 



