140 FRESH FIELDS 



buntings are harsh- voiced, and their songs, when 

 they have songs, are crude. The yellow-hammer 

 comes nearest to our typical sparrow, it is very 

 common, and is a persistent songster, but the song 

 is slight, like that of our savanna sparrow — scarcely 

 more than the chirping of a grasshopper. In form 

 and color it is much like our vesper sparrow, except 

 that the head of the male has a light yellow tinge. 



The greenfinch or green linnet is an abundant bird 

 everywhere, but its song is less pleasing than that 

 of several of our finches. The goldfinch is very 

 rare, mainly, perhaps, because it is so persistently 

 trapped by bird-fanciers; its song is a series of 

 twitters and chirps, less musical to my ear than 

 that of our goldfinch, especially when a flock of 

 the latter are congregated in a tree and inflating 

 their throats in rivalry. Their golden - crowned 

 kinglet has a fine thread-like song, far less than 

 that of our kinglet, less even than that of our black 

 and white creeper. The nuthatch has not the soft, 

 clear call of ours, and the various woodpeckers fig- 

 ure much less; there is less wood to peck, and they 

 seem a more shy and silent race. I saw but one 

 in all my walks, and that was near Wolmer Forest. 

 I looked in vain for the wood-lark; the country 

 people confound it with the pipit. The blackcap 

 warbler I found to be a rare and much overpraised 

 bird. The nightingale is very restricted in its 

 range, and is nearly silent by the middle of June. 

 I made a desperate attempt to find it in full song 

 after the seventeenth of the month, as I have 



