io8 Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



gorgeous sunset that I have ever seen, we were regaled with 

 the song of one of these birds from the brush pile by the 

 roadside, and during that year I continued to hear their songs 

 until in November, and since then I have heard them as late 

 as in December. They are among the very first birds to com- 

 mence singing in the morning, and they sing even later than 

 the vesper sparrows in the evening. Now that I am growing 

 old I am often reminded of and feel in sympathy with Celia 

 Thaxter, that lover of birds, when she wrote : 



"In this sweet, tranquil afternoon of spring, 

 While the low sun declines in the clear west, 



I sit and hear the blithe song sparrow sing 

 His strain of rapture not to be suppressed; 



Pondering life's problem strange, while death draws near, 

 I listen to his dauntless song of cheer." 



The great number of these sparrows is surprising and 

 notwithstanding the many mishaps which befall them, they 

 seem to be steadily increasing. Each year during their stay 

 with us, the Fall Creek valleys are ever full of their soft 

 sweet music. 



"Sweet and true are the notes of his song; 

 Sweet and yet always full and strong; 

 True and yet they are never sad; 

 Serene with the peace that maketh glad." 



While the sparrows are noted as seed eaters they do not 

 by any means confine themselves to a vegetable diet. During 

 the summer, especially in the breeding season, they eat many 

 insects, and feed their young largely upon the same food. 

 Prof. Beal has shown that about one-third of the food of the 

 chipping and song sparrow consists of insects, comprising 

 many injurious beetles, sudi as snout and leaf beetles, many 

 grasshoppers, wasps and bugs. On the whole their food con- 

 sists mainly of the injurious species. Mr. Nehrling, the emin- 

 ent ornithologist, considers the song sparrow one of our most 

 useful birds from the eagerness with which it sets upon in- 

 jurious caterpillars, grasshoppers and leaf-eating beetles, to 

 say nothing about the cabbage worms and moths it destroys ; 



