538 AVES—SPARROW...GOLDFINCH. 
THE FIELD SPARROW! 
Is the smallest of all our sparrows, and frequents dry fields covered with 
long grass builds a small nest on the ground at the foot of a bush, and lines 
it with horse-hair. It has no song, but a kind of chirruping not much diffe- 
rent from the chirpings of a cricket. There are multitudes of these little 
birds in North and South Carolina and Georgia. When disturbed, they take 
to the bushes, clustering so close together that a dozen may be shot at a time. 
This bird is five inches and a quarter in length; the upper parts are chesnut 
and black. 
THEVON Dl GO. BIR D2 
Is numerous in the middle and eastern states, and in the Carolinas and 
Georgia. It is also known in Mexico and Nova Scotia. Its favorite 
haunts are about gardens, fields of clover, borders of woods, and roadsides, 
where it is frequently seen perched on fences. In its manners it is extremely 
neat and active, and a vigorous and pretty good songster. It mounts to the 
tops of the highest trees, and chants for half an hour at a time. Its song is 
not one continued strain, but a repetition of short notes, commencing loud 
and rapid, and falling by slow gradations till they seem hardly articulate, as 
if the little minstrel were quite exhausted; but after a pause of half a minute, 
it commences again as before. He sings with as much animation under the 
meridian sun in July as in the month of May, and continues his song till 
August. His usual note when alarmed, is a sharp chip. It feeds on insects 
and seeds. ; 
Notwithstanding the beauty of his plumage, the vivacity of his song, the 
indigo bird is seldom seen domesticated. Its nest is built in a low bush, 
among ra 1k grass, grain, or clover; suspended by two twigs, one passing up 
each side, .nd is composed of flax, and lined with grass. This bird is five 
inches long, the whole body of a rich sky biue, deepening in color toward 
the head, and sometimes varying to green. 
Ps, E,, YELLOW-BIRD, OR GOLDFINCH3 
Bears a great resemblance to the canary, and in song is like the goldfinch 
of Britain, but it is in general so weak as to appear to proceed from a dis- 
1 Fringilla pusilla, Witson. 2 Fringilla cyanea, WiLson. 
3 Fringilla tristis, Lin. 
