SPRING ARRIVAL OF THE BIRDS. 31 
you may not find one, while other neighborhoods 
abound with them. They seem to prefer stretches of 
level country, especially newly seeded meadows. They 
are plentiful on Buffalo Plains and at the Driving Park, 
and one frequently hears them along Chapin and Bid- 
well Parkways. The song is something like that of 
the song sparrow, and may easily be mistaken for a 
poor effort of this species. The time and divisions of 
the strains are similar, but the quality of the tone is 
entirely different, the notes of the one being clear and 
liquid, while those of the other are thin, stridulous and 
insect like. If you mistake it for that of the song 
sparrow it will prove disappointing, and you will think 
it a young bird, or one having a cold. Many people 
call all the sparrows “ ground birds,” just as they call 
all the little wood flowers “violets.” This term would 
be appropriate for the Savanna, for it is pre-eminently a 
ground bird, as it feeds and nests on the ground, and 
remains most of the time in the grass. It seldom 
alights on a tree, never, as far as I have observed, 
amid the green foliage, but sings on the ground or from 
its low perch on the fence, or on a stone heap. While 
driving along Bidwell Parkway one day last week I 
had an excellent opportunity of comparing the songs 
of several species of sparrows, as the vespers, Hudson- 
jans, Savannas and song sparrows were singing and in 
hearing at the same time. The gramineus, four or five 
in number, in the elms by the roadside, were the more 
conspicuous, each one in turn taking a solo as another 
finished. Two or three melodias sang the interlude, 
