APPENDIX. 149 
Freip-Sparrow. — Contin. 
Mr. Torrey gives much the same description of the 
field-sparrow. He finds the song, however, a “strict 
monotone”: — 
“One more of the innovators (these heretics, as they are most likely 
called by their more conservative brethren) is the field-sparrow, better 
known as Spizella pusilla. His usual song consists of a simple line of 
notes, beginning leisurely, but growing shorter and more rapid to the close. 
The voice is so smooth and sweet, and the acceleration so well managed, 
that, although the whole is commonly a strict monotone, the effect is not 
in the least monotonous. This song I once heard rendered in reverse 
order, with a result so strange that I did not suspect the identity of the 
singer till I had crept up within sight of him. Another of these spar- 
rows, who has passed the last two seasons in my neighborhood, habitually 
doubles the measure, going through it in the usual way, and then, just as 
you expect him to conclude, catching it up again, Da capo.” — Torrey, B.: 
Birds in the Bush, pp. 39-40, 
Linnet. (See p. 37.) 
“There is a strong resemblance to the song of the warbling vireo, 
and it was undoubtedly this finch which Thoreau tells us in his Journal 
he heard in April, and was unable to identify.” — Nelson, H.L. : Bird- 
songs about Worcester, p. 25. 
“He stands at the head of the finches, as the hermit at the head of the 
thrushes.” — Burroughs, J.: Wake-robin, p. 69. 
White-throated Sparrow. (Sce p. 42) 
e Notwithstanding the slighting manner in which the song of this bird 
is spoken of by some writers, in certain parts of the country its clear, 
prolonged, and peculiar whistle has given to it quite a local fame and 
popularity. Among the White Mountains, where it breeds abundantly, 
it is known as the peabody bird, and its remarkably clear whistle re- 
sounds in all their glens and secluded recesses. Its song consists of 
twelve distinct notes, which are not unfrequently interpreted into various 
ludicrous travesties. As this song is repeated with no variations, and 
quite frequently from early morning until late in the evening, it soon 
becomes quite monotonous.” — Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway: North Amer- 
ican Birds, vol, i., Land-Birds, p. 576. 
