AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 67 



They sing as the sun first shows its face aud they sing a farewell when 

 the reddening sky warns us that night is near. The wind that whistles 

 mournfully through the leafless trees, and the biting cold that penetrates 

 the heaviest garments, seem not to detract one whit from their joy. 



As the first showers of April burst the swelling buds, their cheery 

 voices welcome the coming leaves and bid them hasten. During the 

 sultry days of summer, when even the farmer is forced to leave his toil 

 because of the extreme heat, their carols are the sweetest, for then they 

 are singing to nests full of little birds and patient mates. In the fall, 

 their summer's work completed, they while away the days in an ecstacy 

 song as they prepare to leave for the south at the first severe snow 

 storm. Is it any wonder that they have endeared themselves to all who 

 know them? 



If you reside in the country or on the outskirts of the city and have a 

 few vines or shrubs about the yard, you can easily attract a pair of the 

 songsters to your home. If fed a few crumbs occasionally and treated 

 kindly, they will remain, raise their young and return to the same place 

 year after year. Even leaving out of account their numerous vocal en- 

 tertainments, they would pay their rental hundreds of times over by the 

 numerous insects they would destroy, either directly or in the form of 

 eggs or larvae. 



Song Sparrows are mainly ground birds, and are extensively known, 

 locally, as Ground Sparrows. Except when migrating at night, they are 

 not commonly seen at a greater height than the summit of some small 

 tree, upon which one may sit for many minutes at a time and exhibit his 

 musical abilities in competition with those of his rival, who, perhaps, is 

 perched not a great ways off on a fence-post or rock. 



They like the open country and are never found in the woods. For 

 nesting sites, little preference is shown between low swampy land 

 and the high dry pasture land, provided that the latter are well supplied 

 with low shrubbery, bushes or clumps of grass. 



The tall rank tufts of grass bordering the streams that cross the 

 meadow, furnish excellent breeding grounds, and in following the course 

 of such a stream, one knows not at which step one of these little brown 

 birds will scurry away. They sit very closely and so sudden is their 

 rush when they do fly, that unless you were on the alert, it is sometimes 

 very dii^cult to find the treasure. 



They watch over their nests very closely and anxiously, a habit that 

 very often causes a nest to be discovered, that would otherwise never 

 be sought for. Unless the female is sitting on the nest, both birds will 

 commence chirping with great vigor when anyone approaches, and the 

 nearness to the nest may be judged by the intensity of their protests. 



