VESPER SPAHROW. Q'r 



the brilliant sunsets of the summer evenings. Can you imagine, dear reader, the song 

 of this bird at such a time? If you pass over the upland fields and pastures at the 

 close of day, when the sun suddenly breaks through the cloud-banks on the horizon, 

 filling the whole landscape around you with a brilliant hue of crimson and golden light, 

 you will notice every Vesper Sparrow in the field mounting a post, a fence rail, or a 

 dry plant stalk, singing his • sweetest notes. From dozens of birds on all sides the 

 enchanting lay is heard, and this "music in the air" heightens the poetry of rural life 

 more than any other bird song in these localities at this time. 



No other observer has described the song of the Vesper Sparrow so correctly, and 

 at the same time so poetically and in such classic language as Mr. John Burroughs, 

 one of our most enthusiastic and charming writers upon birds — in his excellent little 

 volume, entitled "Wake-Robin": 



"Have you heard the song of the Field Sparrow?" he asks. "If you have lived in 

 a pastoral country with broad upland pastures, you could hardly have missed him. 

 Wilson, I believe, calls him the Grass-finch, and was evidently unacquainted with his 

 powers of song. The two white lateral quills in his tail, and his habit of running and 

 skulking a few yards in advance of you as you walk through the fields, are sufficient to 

 identify him. Not in meadows or orchards, but in high, breezy pasture grounds, will 

 you look for him. His song is most noticeable after sun-down, when other birds are 

 silent, for which reason he has been aptly called the Vesper Sparrow. The farmer 

 following his team from the field at dusk catches his sweetest strain. His song is not 

 so brisk and varied as that of the Song Sparrow, being softer and wilder, sweeter and 

 more plaintive. Add the best parts of the lay of the latter to the sweet vibrating chant 

 of the Wood Sparrow, and you have the evening hymn of the Vesper-bird, — the poet of 

 the plain, unadorned pastures. Go to those brpad, smooth uplying fields where the 

 cattle and sheep are grazing, and sit down in the twilight on one of those warm, clean 

 stones, and listen to this song. On every side, near and remote, from out the short 

 grass which the herds are cropping, the strain rises. Two or three long, silver notes of 

 peace and rest, ending in some subdued trills and quavers, constitute each separate 

 songs Often you will catch only one or two of the bars, the breeze has blown the 

 minor part away. Such unambitious, quiet, unconscious melody ! It is one of the most 

 characteristic sounds in Nature. The grass, the stones, the stubble, the furrow, the 

 quiet herds, and the warm twilight among the hills, are all subtilely expressed in this 

 song; this is what they are at last capable of" 



The Vesper Sparrow is not a gregarious bird, though many pairs may live in close 



proximity of each other. Where we find one pair, others are sure of being found near 



by. But they never associate during the breeding season, and even in fall arid winter 



they are not seen in such large flocks, as, for instance, the Juncos, the Field Sparrows, 



and the White-throated Sparrows. I observed them early in November (1891) in large 



scattered flocks among the weeds of Poidra's sugar plantation, about twelve miles 



south of New Orleans, but in south-eastern Texas I met with them during fall and 



spring on i-are occasions only, which leads me to believe that they do not make this 



region their winter quarters. Further west, in Lee, Bastrop, and Fayette Counties, 



Texas, they were exceedingly common in the cotton and corn fields during November 



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