Brown, Olive or Grayish Brown, and Brown and Gray Sparrowy Birds 
roadside, abundant everywhere during nearly every month in the 
year, and yet was there ever onetoo many? There is scarcely an 
hour in the day, too, when its delicious, ecstatic song may not 
be heard; in the darkness of midnight, just before dawn, when 
its voice is almost the first to respond to the chipping sparrow’s 
wiry trill and the robin’s warble ; in the cool of the morning, the 
heat of noon, the hush of evening—ever the simple, homely, 
sweet melody that every good American has learned to love in 
childhood. What the bird lacks in beauty it abundantly makes 
up in good cheer. Not at all retiring, though never bold, it 
chooses some conspicuous perch on a bush or tree to deliver its 
outburst of song, and sings away with serene unconsciousness. 
Its artlessness is charming. Thoreau writes in his ‘‘Summer” 
that the country girls in Massachusetts hear the bird say : ‘‘ Matds, 
maids, maids, bang on your teakettle, teakettle-ettle-ettle.”’ The 
call-note, a metallic chip, is equally characteristic of the bird’s 
irrepressible vivacity. It has still another musical expression, 
however, a song more prolonged and varied than its usual per- 
formance, that it seems to sing only on the wing. 
Of course, the song sparrow must sometimes fly upward, 
but whoever sees it fly anywhere but downward into the thicket 
that it depends upon to conceal it from too close inspection? 
By pumping its tail as it flies, it seems to acquire more than the 
ordinary sparrow’s velocity. 
Its nest, which is likely to be laid flat on the ground, except 
where field-mice are plentiful (in which case it is elevated into 
the crotch of a bush), is made of grass, strips of bark, and leaves, 
and lined with finer grasses and hair. Sometimes three broods 
may be reared in a season, but even the cares of providing insects 
and seeds enough for so many hungry babies cannot altogether 
suppress the cheerful singer. The eggs are grayish white, 
speckled and clouded with lavender and various shades of 
brown. 
In sparsely settled regions the song sparrows seem to show 
a fondness for moist woodland thickets, possibly because their 
tastes are insectivorous. But it is difficult to imagine the friendly 
little musician anything but a neighbor. 
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