LANDLORD TO THE BIRDS 15 



twined stems, about six feet from the ground, so 

 well concealed by the overhanging leaves that you 

 wondered the birds could find the way in themselves. 

 It is much harder to see what the sparrows bring 

 to their young, as they are shy and crafty about ap- 

 proaching the nest, but by sitting very still I have 

 watched the parents coming in with caterpillars 

 over and over. The United States Bureau of Bio- 

 logical Survey gives forty- two per cent, of their 

 food as "insects and spiders, chiefly caterpillars," 

 and fifty-eight per cent, vegetable matter. That 

 the vegetable matter is seeds you have only to 

 watch the sparrows hopping over the ground to de- 

 termine for yourself. One day I saw a chipping- 

 sparrow fly down from his nest in the vines, to the 

 lawn, and start in on a ripe dandelion-top which was 

 almost ready to burst and scatter its seeds. He 

 completely finished this head, stripping it to the 

 bare, green crown before he rose. 



The chipping-sparrows likewise nested in a row 

 of cedars along a garden path, and here, too, the 

 song-sparrows sometimes built. The song-sparrow, 

 one of the most friendly of summer visitors, who 

 comes early and sings all the time he is here, is gen- 

 erally assigned to the group of ground-building 

 birds ; but he is adaptable both as to nest and as to 

 diet, and with us seemed to prefer the thick protec- 

 tion of an upstanding cedar, several feet above the 

 ground, to a nest in the grass. It was almost a 

 joke with us that we never went out into the garden 

 to work or to pick flowers, but one of our song- 

 sparrows spied us, and thereupon sought the tall, 

 swaying leader of a young pine or spruce and began 



