312 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



March 14, 1854. A large company of fox-colored 

 sparrows in Heywood's maple swamp close by. I heard 

 their loud, sweet, canary-like whistle thirty or forty rods 

 off, sounding richer than anything yet ; some on the 

 bushes singing, twee twee twa twa ter tweer tweer twa, 

 — this is the scheme of it only, there being no dental 

 grit to it. They were shy, flitting before me, and I heard 

 a slight susurrus where many were busily scratch- 

 ing amid the leaves of the swamp, without seeing 

 them, and also saw many indistinctly. Wilson never 

 heard but one sing, their common note there being a 

 cheep. 



March 25, 1858. P. M. — To bank of Great Meadows 

 by Peter's. 



Cold northwest wind as yesterday and before. . . . 



Going across A. Clark's field behind Garfield's, I 

 see many fox-colored sparrows flitting past in a strag- 

 gling manner into the birch and pitch pine woods on 

 the left, and hear a sweet warble there from time to 

 time. They are busily scratching like hens amid the 

 dry leaves of that wood (not swampy), from time to 

 time the rearmost moving forward, one or two at a time, 

 while a few are perched here and there on the lower 

 branches of a birch or other tree ; and I hear a very 

 clear and sweet whistling strain, commonly half -finished, 

 from one every two or three minutes. It is too irregular 

 to be readily caught, but methinks begins like ar tche 

 tche tchear, te tche tchear, etc., etc., but is more clear 

 than these words would indicate. The whole flock is 

 moving along pretty steadily. 



[See also under Sparrows, etc., pp. 320, 321. J 



