THE SONG SPARROWS 



The Sweet Singers 

 By MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 



W&t ilJattonal $t$*omtioti ot SLunubon §>ocietie0 



EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET NO. 31 



All birds have some sort of claim upon the attention, through knowledge 

 of individual habits or economic worth, even when beauty of plumage or song 

 does not hold our attention. There are birds that we should miss if they disap- 

 peared from the places where we have been accustomed to find them, but there 

 are others that we simply could not get on without, and the Song Sparrow is 

 one of them. Song Sparrow? It would be better to say Song Sparrows, as this 

 shy, yet friendly, bird in its adaptation to the various conditions that enables 

 it to live in so many parts of North America, has developed a score of species 

 that vary more or less in size, color and markings, yet every one of these has 

 the attributes for which we love our own little Eastern Song Sparrow (Melospiza 

 cinerea melodia) so well that we forget that he is not the only one. 



In a large family like that of the Sparrows and Finches, to which our Sweet 

 Singer belongs, one would expect to lose sight of the streaked brownish bird 

 with the large spot in the center of his breast, as if Nature had 

 His Kindred blended two or three of the smaller specks, in order to aid its 

 identity and help us out. But no, the Grosbeaks and Crossbills 

 may compel the eye as they flash in and out of the trees; the Juncos, Snowflakes 

 and Red-polls cheer us in winter; but, when the March sun releases the frozen 

 brooks, what voice is it that first rejoices at the sound and tells us of it? — the 

 Song Sparrow! Up floats his cheerful ditty from the alders — "With sweet, 

 sweet, sweet and very merry cheer ! " before his cousin the Goldfinch has 

 donned his yellow spring jacket with black sleeves and cap, or the tremolo of 

 the gentle soft-eyed Chipping Sparrow is heard from the grass before dawn. 



Our Song Sparrow is one of the little group of birds that may be called 

 winter residents in the middle New England states. This does not mean that- 

 all of these Sparrows remain the entire season in their summer 

 „ an nesting haunts, for even the hardiest birds shift about in the 



Range ° ' 



winter season. The Song Sparrows we see from November to- 

 March are apt to be those that have summered considerably farther northward;, 

 thus, some of the birds that bred in the region of Quebec would be likely to winter 

 in Massachusetts, while the Massachusetts birds would come on to Connecti- 

 cut, New York, Pennsylvania, and so on. Neither will the Sparrows be found 

 so plentiful even in the middle parts of their range as in summer, as by far the 



(9°) 



