SONG SPARROW. 67 



genuine happy ring that raises one's spirits ; and 

 when he throws up his head and sings the sweet 

 song that gives him his name, you feel sure the 

 world is worth living in. 



The song sparrow's brown coat has little beauty, 

 but his dark breastpin, surrounded by brown 

 streaks, sets off his light gray waistcoat to advan- 

 tage ; and the brown topknot that he raises when 

 interested gives him a winning air of sympathetic 

 attention. 



The song sparrows are not about the house as 

 much as the chippies, and last summer they began 

 coming for crumbs a week later in the nesting 

 season than their ubiquitous cousins. Then it 

 was amusing to see the business-like way in which 

 they hopped about, their tails perked up and 

 their wings close to their sides. There was one 

 that walked like a blackbird, and when he ran it 

 seemed a waste of energy he had so much more 

 to do than if he had hopped ! 



The usual note of the song sparrow is a rich 

 " tschip," as Thoreau gives it ; but when nesting it 

 has an odd thin chip that sounds so like the note 

 of a young bird that it deceived me into hunting 

 through the bushes when the old bird who was 

 really making it was in plain sight. The spar- 

 row's song is the first set song likely to attract 

 your attention when listening to the birds near 

 the house, and as Thoreau says, is " more honest- 

 sounding than most.'' The song consists of one 



