FIELD AND STUDY 



There is one bird, however, that keeps pretty close 

 to the calendar. I refer to the white-crowned spar- 

 row, the most distinguished-looking of all our spar- 

 rows. Year after year, be the season early or late, 

 I am on the lookout for him between the 12th and 

 the 16th of May. This year, on the 13th, I looked 

 out of my kitchen window and saw two males hop- 

 ping along side by side in the garden. Unhurriedly 

 they moved about, unconscious of their shapely 

 forms and fine bearing. Their black-and-white 

 crowns, their finely penciled backs, their pure ashen- 

 gray breasts, and their pretty carriage, give them a 

 decided look of distinction. Such a contrast to our 

 nervous and fidgety song sparrow, bless her little 

 heart! And how different from the more chunky 

 and plebeian-looking white-throats — bless their 

 hearts also for their longer tarrying and their sweet, 

 quavering ribbon of song! The fox sparrow, the 

 most brilliant singer of all our sparrows, is an un- 

 certain visitor in the Hudson River Valley, and sea- 

 sons pass without one glimpse of him. 



The spring of 1917 was remarkable for the num- 

 ber of migrating blue jays. For many days in May 

 I beheld the unusual spectacle of processions of jays 

 streaming northward. Considering the numbers I 

 saw during the short time in the morning that I was 

 in the open, if the numbers I did not see were in like 

 proportion, many thousands of them must have 

 passed my outlook northward. The jay is evidently 



18 



