SONG SPARROW. 



end of July, are the first to take leave. The Swallows follow by the end of August, 

 and thus one species after the other moves away, in-esistibly away towards the South. 

 During the month of October the gardens swarm with migrating Nuthatches, Brown 

 Creepers, Kinglets, Palm and Myrtle Warblers and a large number of Sparrows. These 

 also move southward as November sets in. Charmingly beautiful are these October 

 days, the salubrious and brilliant days of Indian summer. The trees and shrubs are in 

 their magnificent coloring. Then after the first hard frost each gust of wind shakes 

 down the bright-hued foliage. Apart firom a few belated stragglers the happy summer 

 sojourners have disappeared.. Still later arrive -from the Arctic regions our winter birds, 

 the Crossbills, Pine Grosbeaks, Red-poll Linnets, Tree Sparrows, and Great Northern 

 Shrikes to visit our gardens, while over the snow-clad fields in dense flocks the Snow 

 Buntings whirl about like flurries of Snow. 



This picture of the coming and going, the appearing and passing away was before 

 my mind while I was engaged in writing the life -history of one of our most familiar 

 summer birds, the Song Sparrow. 



Like the beautiful Bluebird and the vocal Robin, the Song Sparrow is one of the 

 heralds of spring, arriving in the North usually as early as March 20, but the majority 

 does not appear before the first days of April. When we hear the mellow warbling of 

 the Bluebird, we may be sure to find the Song Sparrow also. Both arrive only 

 a few days after the Robin. I have sometimes observed a few of these birds as early as 

 March 10, but they disappeared when again very cold and stormy weather followed. 

 Although it is a great satisfaction to look upon March as one of the spring months, and 

 to try to force oneself in the belief that the balmy spring weather will soon bring out 

 the delicious green tints on meadows and forests, and call forth the early blossoms and 

 the arrival of birds, yet we of the North are forced to admit with each returning spring, 

 that March is a blustering, unsatisfactory, decidedly disagi-eeable month with but very 

 few exceptions, and it is only the thought of the real spring time that lies just beyond, 

 that tnakes it at all bearable. Many Bluebirds perish during very cold and snowy 

 March weather, though the Song Sparrows find food and shelter among the weeds and 

 grasses of the swamps and in fence comers. A few, probably from high northern lati- 

 tudes, sometimes winter even in sheltered places in the Northern States and New 

 England. In the Middle States they seem to be quite common in winter, but their real 

 winter home is found in the South' Atlantic and Gulf States. 



The summer range of the Song Sparrow extends mainly over the eastern part of 

 the United States, from the Atlantic to the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains, and the 

 most northern point to which it has been traced are the plains of the Saskatchewan 

 and the shores of Lake Winnipeg. How far its breeding range extends southward 

 I cannot say. Prof, Wm. Brewster does not include it in his list of the summer 

 birds of the mountains of North Carolina. In south-western Missouri it is a common 

 winter resident, but it never breeds there. According to Prof. Robert Ridgway, it breeds 

 chiefly north of latitude 40°. In southern Illinois he found it as a winter sojourner, 

 "abundant, but very retiring, inhabiting almost solely the bushy swamps in the bottom 

 lands, and unknown as a song bird. The same are also probably its habits throughout 

 Illinois and the adjacent districts. This is a remarkable instance of variation in habits 



