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occurred to excite his suspicions, he would feed busily 
and unconcernedly for minutes at a time. one of the seed 
had sifted down among the dry leaves and for this he 
scratched precisely in the manner of a Fox Sparrow*, malting 
first a forward hop of about two Inches and then a vigorous 
okward juR£> and hick which scattered behind him all. the 
leaves that his feet had clutched. In this maneer he would 
quickly cle-r a considerable space and then devote himself 
to the uncovered seeds, which he would nick up one by one 
and roll i His bill after the manner of ost ''narrows. 
He was invariably silent /hen at the seed bed but 
within the recesses of his favorite thicket he sang freely 
at all .ours, eqgfeol&lly in the morning or early forenoon 
or when the sun had just emerged from a cl ud. He never 
sang from the top of a bush like a Song sparrow but usually 
from some perch only a yard or so above the ground in the 
depths of the covert and not infrequently on the- ground 
itself as he rambled from place to place hopping slowly 
over the dry leaves. His voice was r&tih and sweet at 
times but it had little Carrying power and was not dis¬ 
tinctly audible at a prater distance than forty or fifty 
yards. 
Of its form it is impossible to treat briefly 
or in 'general terms for the bird had ffiffMI, whioil 
were not only different but very dissimilar. ’lost birds 
who possess a rich and varied repertoire give their 
n 
