68 OUR WINTER BIRDS 



have learned it, is as good an. Identification mark as 

 though the bird were to speak its own name. 



Young Song Sparrows sing a rambling kind of 

 low song, which seems to have neither beginning nor 

 end, and bears no resemblance to the strongly ac- 

 cented performance of their parent. 



Song Sparrow is not a bird of the fields. He 

 never lives far from bushes into which, with a "pump- 

 ing" motion of the tail, he generally flics when 

 alarmed. He prefers the vicinity of water, and an 

 alder-bordered brook with marsh marigolds, like 

 patches of sunlight on the fresh green of the neigh- 

 boring meadows, makes his ideal home. 



Though far less abundant in winter than in sum- 

 mer. Song Sparrow is with us throughout the year. 

 He opens the season of song in February and closes 

 it in November. Late in April he and his mate 

 build on or near the ground a nest of coarse grasses, 

 rootlets, dead leaves and strips, of bark and line it 

 with fine grasses. The four or five eggs are whitish 

 with numerous reddish-brown markings. 



