1898.] ESSAYS. 45 



larly valuable because he is fond of potato beetles. He also 

 eats the gipsy moth, and a great many other noxious insects, 

 and also grasshoppers and crickets. This bird comes from the 

 middle to the last of April and spends the summer. He has a 

 tine song, a song that is perhaps next to that of the Wood 

 Thrush in the beauty of its strains. This is quite abundant 

 about Green Hill and Millstone Hill. 



The Sparrow family is a large one, that is, the Sparrow 

 family, I should say, including these Grosbeaks and all birds 

 with strong beaks that can feed upon ground beetles and upon 

 seeds and nuts. They do not seem to be so valuable perhaps 

 in destroying insects, though they feed their young upon insects 

 and so consume a great number in that way, but they are very 

 valuable in destroying the seeds of noxious weeds. The Savanna 

 Sparrow, a bird that is distinguished by a pale yellow line over 

 the eye, is very much like the Song Sparrow otherwise, in its 

 coloring. It comes early, about the last of March, and is a 

 summer resident, though I think it is not so well known as the 

 other Sparrows. The Song Sparrow, of course, is the best 

 known of them all, as it comes very early, sometimes in Febru- 

 ary, and is here until late in the fall, occasionally perhaps win- 

 tering. It builds its nest upon the ground, and the song is one 

 of the sweetest notes of all the springtime and the middle of the 

 summer. It has a very varied song, and it is hardly possible to 

 describe it, to say definitely, as I often hear it said, that he 

 begins with three opening notes, a trill, and three high notes at 

 the end. I have heard it begin with three notes and four, and 

 with simply an upward slur. The song is very much indeed 

 like that of the Vesper Sparrow, and its color is very much like 

 it only it has white lateral tail feathers. The White-throated 

 Sparrow is here only in the spring and in the fall. It is a 

 misfrant, ofoing farther north into the White Mountains and 

 Maine to nest. It has a fine song, one of the most beautiful 

 perhaps of the Sparrow family, clear, long, high notes, followed 

 by trills rapidly given and very sweet. Its note gives it the 

 name " Peabody Bird," from the four words that can be said 

 with it, '* Old man Peabody, Peabody, Peabody." It is really 

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