108 BIRDS 



utterance. Few people whistle well enough to imitate it. 

 Few birds can rival the musical ecstasy. 



Artlessly self-confident, not at all bashful, the song spar- 

 row mounts to a conspicuous perch when he sings, rather 

 than let his efforts be muffled by foliage. You will not 

 mistake him for an English sparrow if you notice his dis- 

 tinguishing marks: the fine, dark streaks on his light 

 breast that tend to form a larger blotch in the centre, like a 

 cravat. You see him singing on the extended branch of 

 some low tree, on the topmost twig of a bush, on a fence, 

 or on a piazza railing from which he dives downward into 

 the grass, or flies straight along into the bushes, his tail 

 working like a pump handle as if to help his flight. Very 

 rarely he flies upward. 



The Swamp Sparrow 



Where sora rails thread their way among the rushes, and 

 red-winged blackbirds, marsh wrens, and Maryland 

 yellow-throats like to live, there listen for the tweet-twed- 

 tweet of the swamp sparrow. It is a sweet but rather mo- 

 notonous Uttle song that he repeats over and over again to 

 the mate who is busy about her grassy nest in a tussock not 

 far away, but well hidden among the rank swamp growth. 



It is not difficult to tell the plain gray-breasted swamp 

 sparrow from the larger song sparrow with the streaked 

 breast. 



The Field Sparrow 



While the neighborly song sparrow and the swamp spar- 

 row delight to be near water, the field sparrow chooses to 

 live in dry uplands where stunted bushes and cedars cover 



