44 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL. 



an instant not like a bird but an indistinct zigzag 

 streak, and Yanishes again in the mass of dry pine 

 leaves, where it remains long enough to compose 

 itself a;id then flies off to another covert, vrhich is 

 sufficiently open for me to secure a rear view of a 

 globular bunch of feathers, a little dark, pot-shaped 

 . bird, with two slender wires for the legs, and a 

 short, narrow, turned-up tail for the handle. This 

 I am quite sure, is the winter wren ^Troglodytes 

 Memalis'), and is a stranger in these parts excepting 

 in the spring and fall migrations. As it turns its 

 head in watchful attitude, I observe a rather long, 

 tapering bill, and a streak of light brown over the 

 eye. 



As I walk along the fields I scare up troops of 

 birds, most of them sparrows, or finches that pro- 

 bably arrived on the owl train last night. These 

 sparrows are interesting if one possesses the na- 

 turalist's curious eyes to note their manifold 

 habits and markings. They are among the har- 

 diest winners in the bird's life-race, all retaining 

 that peculiar sparrow quality which must have, in 

 some remote period, prevailed in a strong ancestral 

 type, now, through the law of variation, changed 

 into many genera and species. 



Probably these same birds, not two weeks ago. 



