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THE SONG SPARROW. 



FrINGILLA MELOniJ, WiLS. 

 PLATE XXV. Male and Female. 



The Song Sparrow is one of the most abundant of its tribe in Loui- 

 siana, during winter. This abundance is easily accounted for by the cir- 

 cumstance that it rears three broods in the year : — six, five, and three 

 young at each time, making fourteen per annum from a single pair. Sup- 

 posing a couple to Hve in health, and enjoy the comforts necessary for the 

 bringing up of their yovmg famiUes, for a period of only ten years, which 

 is a moderate "^estimate for birds of this class, you will readily conceive 

 how a whole flock of Song Sparrows may in a very short time be produced 



by them. 



Amono- the many desiderata connected with the study of nature, there 

 is one which, long felt by me, is not less so at the present moment. I 

 have never been able to conceive why a bird which produces more than 

 one brood in a season, should abandon its first nest to construct a new 

 one, as is the case with the present species ; while other birds, such as the 

 Ospreys, and various species of Swallows, rear many broods in the first 

 nest which they have made, and to which they return, after their long 

 annual migrations, to repair it, and render it fit for the habitation of the 

 young brood. There is another fact which renders the question still 

 more difficult to be solved. I have generally found the nests of this 

 Sparrow cleaner and more perfect after the brood raised in them have 

 made their departure, than the nests of the other species of birds men- 

 tioned above are on such occasions ; a circumstance which would render 

 it unnecessary for the Song Sparrow to repair its nest. You are aware 

 of the cleanliness of birds with respect to their nests during the whole 

 period occupied in rearing their young. You know that the parents re- 

 move the excrements to a distance from them, so long as these excre- 

 ments are contained in a filmy kind of substance, of which the old bird 

 lays hold with its bill for that express purpose, frequently carrying them 

 off to a distance of forty or fifty yards, or even more. Well, the Song 

 Sparrow is among the cleanest of the clean. I have often watched the 

 yoimf birds leaving the nest ; and after their departure, have found it as 



