762 
THE BIRDS THAT IVE SEE. 
same bird is also tlie author of the 
sweet little refrain which we hear in 
the spring-time whenever some ambi¬ 
tious chickadee would fain prove him¬ 
self a very nightingale to the one that 
he loves best. 
The pathway we have, in imagination, 
followed with the naturalist leads into 
the little woods, and turning about 
among hillocks and trees, begins un¬ 
mistakably to dip downward. In the 
Eastern States the woods are usually 
left standing along hillsides, ravines, 
brooksides, and other places too uneven 
for cultivation, and soon we come to 
the little stream that had spoilt this 
place in the ploughman’s eyes, and 
saved this little shelter-nook of second 
growth timber. 
A pair of song sparrows is usually 
found for every hundred yards of such 
running streams, rarely, indeed, is the 
stream without its song sparrow, and 
rarely is the bird seen away from its 
beloved stream. He, above all others, 
is the brook bird; he can live content¬ 
edly by a little pond, and has even been 
found frequenting a low, damp thicket; 
but it is down by the running, flashing 
water, that he finds his ideal home, and 
here, on some low twig over the stream, 
he chants that sweet song which, in 
Quebec, has won for him, the name of 
Rossignol. 
In general aj)pearance he is much 
like his near relatives, but a single 
chiiqD from his melodious throat, suf¬ 
fices to identify him a hundred yards 
away. 
The birds appear to have made a 
tacit division of the whole country, and 
while the song sparrow claims and in¬ 
habits exclusively the thickets at the 
water’s edge, the drier and more open 
underwoods farther back have fallen to 
the lot of the chewink. Uj) he flies 
from among the brown leaves, where 
he had l^een bustling about as noisily 
as a l)am fowl, and as he darts into 
some sheltering thicket he utters his 
loud “ Towhee,” a note so characteristic 
that it has become one of his names. 
His other name, “ Chewink,” is the open¬ 
ing bar of the spring song that he war¬ 
bles for hours together from the upjDer 
branches of some low shmb. It is re¬ 
markable that he has no common name, 
suggested by his color, for his jet black 
head and U2325er 2 )arts, re- 
heved by white s 2 )ots on 
wing and tail, are always 
cons23icuous, and when a 
chance Hew at close quar¬ 
ters is obtained, his chest¬ 
nut flanks, and 23ure white 
breast, are found equally worthy of no¬ 
tice in the forming of a name. His 
chant has been recorded by Wilson 
Flagg as shown on 23. 763. 
But, hark to that loud, harsh, rattling 
cry! and see flying over the creek the 
large bluish bird that utters it. See, 
he suddenly arrests his flight, and, 
poising an instant in the air, darts 
downward into the water, to rise again 
with a glittering object—a fish—-in his 
bill. It is scarcely necessary to say 
Song Sparrow. 
