ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SONG-BIRDS 121 



the little bush sparrow, suddenly projected upon 

 the silence of the fields or of the evening twiliglit, 

 and delighting the ear as a beautiful scroll deliglits 

 the eye! The white-crowned, the white-throated, 

 and the Canada sparrows sing transiently sjDring and 

 fall; and I have heard the fox sparrow in April, 

 when his song haunted my heart like some bright, 

 sad, delicious memory of youth, — the richest and 

 most moving of all sparrow-songs. 



Our wren- music, too, is superior to anything of 

 the kind in the Old World, because we have a 

 greater variety of wren-songsters. Our house wren 

 is inferior to the British house wren, but our marsh 

 wren has a lively song; while our winter wren, in 

 sprightliness, mellowness, plaintiveness, and execu- 

 tion, is surpassed by but few songsters in the world. 

 The summer haunts of this wren are our hi^h, cool, 

 northern woods, where, for the most part, his music 

 is lost on the primeval solitude. 



The British flycatcher, according to White, is a 

 silent bird, while our species, as the phoebe-bird, 

 the Avood pewee, the kingbird, the little green fly- 

 catcher, and others, all have notes more or less 

 lively and musical. The great crested flycatcher 

 has a harsh voice, but the pathetic and silvery note 

 of the wood pewee more than makes up for it. 

 White says the golden-crowned wren is not a song- 

 bird in Great Britain. The corresponding species 

 here has a pleasing though not remarkable song, wliich 

 is seldom heard, however, except in its breeding 

 haunts in the north. But its congener, the ruby- 



