322 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



above it, and, when all is quiet, return into the juniper, 

 perhaps for its berries. It is often hard to detect them 

 as they sit on the young trees, now beginning to be bare, 

 for they are very nearly the color of the bark and are 

 very cunning to hide behind the leaves. 



Oct. 19, 1856. The fall, now and for some weeks, is 

 the time for flocks of sparrows of various kinds flitting 

 from bush to bush and tree to tree — and both bushes 

 and trees are thinly leaved or bare — and from one 

 seared meadow to another. They are mingled together, 

 and their notes, even, being faint, are, as well as their 

 colors and motions, much alike. The sparrow youth are 

 on the wing. They are still further concealed by their 

 resemblance in color to the gray twigs and stems, which 

 are now beginning to be bare. 



I have often noticed the inquisitiveness of birds, as 

 the other day of a sparrow, whose motions I should not 

 have supposed to have any reference to me, if I had 

 not watched it from first to last. I stood on the edge of 

 a pine and birch wood. It flitted from seven or eight 

 rods distant to a pine within a rod of me, where it 

 hopped about stealthily and chirped awhile, then flew 

 as many rods the other side and hopped about there a 

 spell, then back to the pine again, as near me as it 

 dared, and again to its first position, very restless all 

 the while. Generally I should have supposed that there 

 was more than one bird, or that it was altogether acci- 

 dental, — that the chipping of this sparrow eight or 

 ten rods [away] had no reference to me, — for I could 

 see nothing peculiar about it. But when I brought my 



