DRAGON’S BLOOD 219 
there a more discouraging day for a collector of bird- 
songs. The year was dying of rheumy age. On the 
trees still hung a few dank, blotched leaves, while 
the sodden ground plashed under foot and a leaden 
mist of rain covered everything. Yet at the edge of 
the very first field that I started to cross, a strange 
call cut through the fog, and I glimpsed a large black- 
and-white bird crossing the meadow with the dipping 
up-and-down flight of a woodpecker. It was the hairy 
woodpecker, the big brother of the more common 
downy, and a bird that usually loves the depths of 
the woods. Hardly had it alighted on a wild-cherry 
tree, when an English sparrow flew up from a nearby 
ash-dump and attacked the new comer. The harassed 
woodpecker flew to the next tree and the next, but 
was driven on and away each time by the sparrow, 
until finally, with another rattling call, it flew back 
to the woods from whence it had come. A moment 
later a starling alighted on the same tree, unmolested 
by its compatriot. 
I followed the fields to a nearby patch of woods. 
It is small and bounded on all sides by crowded roads, 
but at all times of the year I find birds there. As I 
reached the edge of the trees white-skirted juncos 
flew up in front of me. Mingled with their sharp 
notes, like the clicking of pebbles, came the gentle 
whisper of the white-throated sparrow, and from a 
nearby thicket one of them gave its strange minor 
song. For its length I know of no minor strain in 
bird-music that is sweeter. Like the little silver 
flute-trill of the pink-beaked field sparrow, and the 
