258 FRINGILLID^E : FINCHES. 



glow, and it takes a good while to sober the Song 

 Sparrows after their summer's hey-day. We still hear 

 their trill, like a memory rather than a hope, when the 

 woods and fields have reached the golden gates of 

 fruition. Then many Sparrows, who have made up 

 their minds to see it through, go into winter-quarters 

 with much chirping of mutual encouragement, while 

 others join the departing hosts which are off for the 

 " sunny South." 



Few nests, such as those of Swallows, Blue-birds, 

 King-birds, Robins, and Chippies, are better known 

 than those of the Song Sparrows, and their richly 

 speckled eggs are among every boy's treasures. Not 

 that I can any longer pretend to belong to that hap- 

 pily perverse fraternity but I have, nevertheless, 

 about a hundred evidences of at least twenty bit- 

 terly disappointed pairs of Song Sparrows before me 

 for description. It is no easy task I see so much dif- 

 ference among them in size, shape, and color, as I run 

 my eye over the neat rows of trays, each containing 

 from three to six specimens, and such close general 

 similarity to the eggs of half a dozen other kinds of 

 Sparrows. In size, several selected specimens run 

 from 0.75 to 0.85 in length, averaging near the mean 

 of these two numbers, by 0.55 to 0.60 in breadth. 

 The pattern and precise effect of the markings is end- 

 lessly variable ; but three eggs may be selected to il- 

 lustrate the principal styles. One, the rarest, is of de- 

 cidedly greenish-white ground-color, sparsely sprinkled 

 with pale reddish-brown and lavender, in small pattern, 

 and chiefly about the larger end the ground-color in 

 su.ch cases being more obtrusive than the spotting. In 

 another extreme, the whole surface is so thickly flecked 



