48 
BIRDS 
powers of song. The two white lateral 
quills in his tail, and his habit of run¬ 
ning and skulking a few yards in ad¬ 
vance of you as you walk through the 
fields, are sufficient to identify him. Not 
in meadows or orchards, but in high, 
breezy pasture-grounds, will you look for 
him. His song is most noticeable after 
sundown, when other birds are silent; for 
which reason he has been aptly called the 
Vesper-Sparrow. The farmer following 
his team from the field at dusk catches 
his sweetest strain. His song is not so 
brisk and varied as that of the Song- 
Sparrow, being softer and wilder, sweeter 
and more plaintive. Add the best v parts 
of the lay of the latter to the sweet, 
vibrating chant of the Wood-Sparrow, 
and you have the evening hymn of the 
Vesper-Bird,—the poet of the plain, un¬ 
adorned pastures. Go to those broad, 
smoooth, up-lying fields where the cattle 
and sheep are grazing, and sit down in 
the twilight on one of those warm, clean 
stones, and listen to this song. On every 
side, near and remote, from out the short 
grass which the herds are cropping, the 
