326 NOTES ON THE 
It arrives in the southern counties about the 1st to the 10th 
of April and in the vicinity of Miuneapolis not very far from 
‘the 20th of that month, often a trifle later. 
It may be that the absence of variety and greater modula- 
tion in the songs of the Chipping Sparrow will account for its 
absence from the songs of the poets, but its claims to the re 
membrances of man are second only to that of the bluebirds 
and robins. It even exceeds either of those species in the 
measure of confidence it manifests in coming to our very 
thresholds for the crumbs that fall from our boards, and trip- 
ping almost under our feet as we go about the garden or 
through the orchards. Its song, so monotonous as it is, ought 
to awaken our notice, for its associations are legions, reach- 
ing back through the many summers to the adieus to our 
very cradles. ‘‘We boys” recall the many times we used to 
find their nests, wondering where they got all the hair there 
was in their structure, and how they painted their eggs such a 
beautiful, bright, bluish-green, and speckled them at the large 
end with reddish-brown and black. And when the little eggs 
had ail gone to smash, and some tiny, featherless little carica- 
tures of blind birdies had taken their places with their hide- 
ous, yellow lined mouths constantly wide open, we were still 
more confounded with the dawning mysteries of life. All this 
with only a sort of a conventional protest from the confiding 
parents, ought now to give this humble, cheerful, plainly 
dressed sparrow a warm place in our memories. Its specific 
scientific name affords one instance of appropriateness amongst 
a large number, the selection of which is an impeachment to 
claims of advacement made for the race. Adam never burd 
ened so many of the birds with the abominations employed in 
our scientific nomenclature of them, or he would have wanted 
to escape from the garden of Eden earlier than he was driven 
out. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Rump, back of neck, sides of neck and head, ashy; inter- 
scapular with black streaks, margined with pale rufous; crown ~ 
continuous and uniform chestnut; forehead black, separated 
in the middle by white; a white streak over the eye, anda 
black one from the base of the bill through and behind the 
eye. Under parts unspotted whitish, tinged with ashy, especi- 
ally across the upper breast. Tail feathers and primaries 
edged with paler, not white. Two narrow white bands across 
the wing coverts. Bill black. 
Length, 5.75; wing, 3. 
Habitat, eastern North America, west to Rocky Mountains. 
