no Bird -Lore 



and kick which scattered behind him all the leaves on which his 

 feet had for an instant rested. In this way he would quickly clear 

 a considerable space, to which he would then devote his attention 

 until he had picked up all the uncovered seeds and rolled them, 

 one by one, between his slightly opened mandibles to remove the 

 husks, after the manner of most Seed-eating birds. He was invari- 

 ably silent when feeding, but within the recesses of his favorite 

 thicket he sang more or less freely at all hours, oftenest in the 

 early morning or when the sun had just emerged from behind a 

 cloud, usually from some perch a yard or less above the ground, 



LINCOLN S SPARROW 

 About Yi natural size. From a mounted specimen in the American Museum of Natural History 



but not infrequently on the ground itself as he rambled from place 

 to place, hopping slowly over the dry leaves. His voice was divinely 

 rich and sweet at times, but invariably so low as to be inaudible at 

 a greater distance than forty or fifty yards. It is impossible to treat 

 briefly and at the same time accurately of his song, for it included 

 several themes, some of which differed comparatively slightly from one 

 another, while others were widely dissimilar. After spending much time 

 studying and comparing them, I noted and classified them as follows: 



I. A simple, level, woodeny trill repeated at short, regular inter- 

 vals, usually indistinguishable from the summer song of the Junco 

 but sometimes possessing a resonant, lyrical quality approaching that 

 of the Yellow-rumped Warbler's song. 



