SOME LABRADOR RIVERS 
of Natural History for the year 1883, the follow- 
ing by Mr. William Brewster, who paid a flying 
visit to southern Labrador in 1881, more clearly 
expresses these thoughts, and well describes 
the song of the fox sparrow and its settings: 
“What the Mocking-bird is to the South, 
the Meadow Lark to the plains of the West, 
the Robin and Song Sparrow to Massachusetts, 
and the White-throated Sparrow to northern 
New England, the Fox Sparrow is to the bleak 
regions bordering the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 
At all hours of the day, in every kind of weather 
late into the brief summer, its voice rises among 
the evergreen woods filling the air with quiver- 
ing, delicious melody, which at length dies 
softly, mingling with the soughing of the wind in 
the spruces, or drowned by the muffled roar 
of the surf beating against neighbouring cliffs. 
To my ear the prominent characteristic of its 
voice is richness. It expresses careless joy and 
exultant masculine vigour, rather than delicate 
shades of sentiment, and on this account is 
perhaps of a lower order than the pure, passion- 
less hymn of the Hermit Thrush; but it is such 
a fervent, sensuous and withal perfectly- 
rounded carol that it affects the ear much as 
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