144 FOX SPARROW. 
thicket will come only the cozy, contented twitterings of 
the birds wishing one another good night. 
The interest with which one examines a flock of White- 
throatel Sparrows is intensified by the probability of 
Whit ea finding their distinguished relative the 
Sparrow, White-crown. In the Mississippi Val- 
Zonotrichia ley he is often common, but in the 
Zeucp'rys. Ntlantic States he is sufficiently rare 
to be a character of importance. 
The White-crown differs from the White-throat in 
having no white on the throat, which, like the breast, is 
gray, and in having the space before the eye black in- 
stead of yellow or white. In the fall his crown is brown, 
with a paler line through its center. 
Near New York city I look for the White-crown 
in September and October, and again about May 15. 
Thompson describes its song as “like the latter half of 
the White-throat’s familiar refrain, repeated a number 
of times with a peculiar sad cadence and in a clear, soft 
whistle.” 
Some fine day about the middle of March you may 
hear a song so unlike,any you have ever heard, that be- 
Fox Sparrow,  10re the singer ceases you will know 
Passerella iliaca. you are on the verge of a discovery. 
Plate XLVI = 'The song is loud, exceedingly sweet, 
and varied. Its richness of tone seems to accentuate the 
bleakness of the bird’s surroundings. It is a song for 
summer, not for leafless spring; but heard at this sea- 
son it seems all the more attractive, and with pleasurable 
excitement you hasten toward the second growth, near 
the border of which the bird is perched. His large size 
and bright reddish brown upper parts readily distinguish 
him from other Sparrows, and, in connection with his 
spotted breast, give him a general resemblance to a Hermit 
Thrush, for which bird he is sometimes mistaken; but a 
eS 
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