Odds and Ends 127 



account, for they were the same blithe and familiar birds, 

 trilling their sweetest chansons in the trees in the resi- 

 dence portion of the town in which I lived. And sing! 

 Were there ever birds with more dulcet tones, with finer 

 voice register, or with a greater variety of tunes in their 

 repertoire ? 



Going back to Kansas in winter, we note that the 

 song sparrows, instead of remaining at one place, shifted 

 about a good deal more than I had ever known them to 

 do in the East. In December a pair found a dwelling in the 

 weed clumps and brush heaps of a hollow a short distance 

 from the Missouri River; but they soon deserted this 

 spot, well sheltered as it was, none being seen there until 

 the twenty-third of February. It surprised me to find 

 another pair, and sometimes two pairs, in a thicket right 

 on the bank of the wide river, where they were exposed 

 to many of the winter blasts, especially those that swept 

 down from the frozen north. Up in the deep, winding 

 ravine they might have had excellent shelter and, so far 

 as I could see, just as good feeding. However, I have 

 long ago learned that there is no accounting for tastes 

 in the bird realm any more than in the human realm. 



The hardiest of the Mniotiltidce tribe are the myrtle 

 warblers, which dapple the whitened edges of winter, both 

 autumn and spring, with their golden rumps and amber 

 brooches. Evidently these birds are shyer of the rigorous 

 Ohio winters than of the more mild-mannered- Kansas 

 weather. In the former state I never saw a myrtle 

 warbler after the first or second week in November, while 



