THE FIELD SPARROW. 379 



British America, and breeds throughout the Eastern United 

 States. 



The local distribution of birds is very interesting. Each 

 kind of locality has its own peculiar species. Around our 

 residences, and in the orchard, we find a certain group — the 

 Chipping Sparrow, the Purple Finch, the Kingbird, the 

 Phoebe, the Eave and Barn Swallows. In the open field we 

 have another group — the Meadow Lark, the Horned Lark, 

 the Bay-winged Sparrow, the Bobolink ; in the thickets, yet 

 another group — the Field, or, more properly, the Bush Spar- 

 row, the Indigo Bird, the Catbird, the Yellow Warbler ; 

 the forest birds — the Thrushes, the greater part of the 

 Warblers and Flycatchers, and certain of the Fringillida — 

 are quite strictly confined to their peculiar abodes; the 

 swamps afford a large variety, nowhere else to be found, 

 while, as every one knows, the water-birds are more or less 

 attached, by regular laws of distribution, to ponds, streams, 

 rivers, lakes, or to the ocean. In no way is the instinct of 

 birds more certainly made known than in the selection of 

 their local as well as their general habitat. 



THE FIELD SPARROW. 



As I approach a thicket— a slashing, as it is called here- 

 being a rough piece of ground where the forest has been 

 recently cut away and where the bushes have grown up, I 

 hear the peculiar song of the Field or Bush Sparrow (Spi- 

 zella pusilld). The notes may be pronouced free-o, free-o, 

 free-o, free-o, free, free, free, free, fru, frii; the first four 

 loud, well prolonged, and on a higher key, while the re- 

 maining notes run rapidly to a lower pitch, growing softer 

 and weaker to the end, the last being barely perceptible at 

 a short distance. The song is quite constantly repeated at 



