The Western Tree Sparrow 



"THE sight of the first Tree Sparrow in the fall serves perfectly to 

 call up a vision of impending winter. Here are the hurrying blasts, the 

 leaden skies, the piling snow-drifts, all ready to make the beholder shiver. 

 But here, too, in some unburied weed patch, or thicket of rose-briars, is a 

 company of Tree Sparrows, stout-hearted and cold-defying, setting up a 

 merry tinkling chorus, as eloquent of good cheer as a crackling Yule-log. 

 How many times has the bird-man hastened out after some cruel cold snap, 

 thinking, 'Surely this 

 will settle for my birds,' 

 only to have his fears re- 

 buked by a troop of these 

 hardy Norsemen revel- 

 ling in some back pas- 

 ture as if they had found 

 their Valhalla on this 

 side the icy gates. Ho! 

 brothers! here is food in 

 these capsules of mus- 

 tard and cockle; here is 

 wine distilled from the 

 rose-hips; here is shelter 

 in the weedy mazes, or 

 under the soft blanket 

 of the snow. What ho! 

 Lift the light song! Pass 

 round the cup again ! 

 Let mighty cheer pre- 

 vail!" (Birds of Ohio). 



The claim of the 

 Western Tree Sparrow 

 to a place upon the Cali- 

 fornia list still rests upon 

 the solitary specimen 

 taken by Feilner at Fort 

 Crook, in Shasta Coun- 

 ty, in 1879. Because of 

 the milder climate of the 

 Pacific Coast region, 

 these hardy birds do not 

 come so far south in 

 winter as do their east- 

 ern compatriots, and western tree sparrow 



301 



