FIELD AND STUDY 



part of the tree — not one loose end or superfluous 

 stroke about it. 



Two other species of our flycatchers, the kingbird 

 and the great crested, differ in form and coloration 

 as much as they do in life-habits — the kingbird 

 being rather sho^^ly clad in black, gray, and white, 

 with a peculiar, affected, tip-wing flight, and haunt- 

 ing the groves and orchards, while the great crested 

 flycatcher is rufous or copper-colored, with a tinge 

 of saffron-yellow, haunting the woods and building 

 its nest in a cavity in a tree, occasionally in or- 

 chards. 



Nature repeats herself with variations in two of 

 our sparrows — the song sparrow, and the vesper 

 sparrow, or grass finch. The latter is a trifle the 

 larger and of a lighter mottled gray-and-brown 

 color, and has certain field habits, such as skulking 

 or running in the grass and running along the high- 

 way in front of your team. It does not wear the 

 little dark-brown breastpin that the song sparrow 

 does, and it has two lateral white quills in its tail 

 which are conspicuous when it flies. Its general 

 color, and these white quills, suggest the skylark, 

 and it was doubtless these features that led a male 

 lark which once came to me from overseas, and 

 which I liberated in a wide field near home, to pay 

 court to the vesper and to press his suit day after 

 day, to the obvious embarrassment of the sparrow. 



The song sparrow is better known than the vesper 



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