Fox Sparrows 
Sonp:s of 
Fox Sparrows 
The figures just given probably do not represent 
anything like the total number of Fox Sparrows seen at 
the cabin during the day for the birds were continually 
arriving and departing or, in other words, changing 
places. This fact will account, no doubt, for their 
feeding ceaselessly through the entire day. I should not 
surprised to learn (were it possible to get at the real 
facts) that the total niimber that we entertained was 
nearer three hundred than one hundred. Of course they 
ate a lot of food — fully two pounds of seed and a pint 
or more of cracker and bread crumbs^ 
As I have said, the Fox Sparrows sang as well 
as fed all day long, with never an interval of silence 
much exceeding a minute. Yet I did not often hear more 
than two and never more than three at any one time. It 
is difficult to account for this fact, especially when 
the wide fluctuations in the number of birds within 
hearing are borne in mind. The songs of different indiv¬ 
iduals varied in form, in tone and in quality or merit. 
The best singers were those which used the notes most 
characteristic of their species. These birds were by 
far the most numerous. Among the aferrant singers I heard 
one which might easily have been mistaken for a Grass 
Finch, another who sang very much like a Purple Finch 
and a third whose final notes were almost exactly like 
