FIELD AND STUDY 



Hence its eggs or young often fall victims to the 

 sharp-eyed, all-devouring crows, as they lead their 

 clamorous broods about the summer pastures. The 

 song sparrow more frequently selects its nesting- 

 place in a grassy or mossy bank by the roadside or 

 in the orchard, when it does not leave the ground 

 to take to a low bush or tangle of vines on the lawn, 

 as it so frequently does. 



We have two other sparrow^s that are close akin 

 — indeed, almost like fruit on the same tree — yet 

 with clear-cut differences. I refer to the "chippie," 

 or social sparrow, and the field, or, as I prefer to 

 call it, the bush sparrow — two birds that come so 

 near being duplicates of each other that in my boy- 

 hood I recognized only the one species, the chip- 

 ping sparrow, so much at home in the orchard and 

 around the dooryard. Few country persons, I fancy, 

 discriminate the two species. They are practically 

 of the same size and same manners, but differ in 

 color. The bush sparrow is more russet, has a russet 

 beak and feet and legs, and its general appearance 

 harmonizes more with country surroundings. The 

 two species differ in about the same way that the 

 town-dweller differs from his rustic brother. But in 

 the matter of song there is no comparison — the 

 strain of the bush sparrow being one of the most 

 tender and musical of all our sparrow songs, while 

 that of the "chippie," or the hair-bird, as it is often 

 called, is a shuffling repetition of a single unmusical 



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