than Saturday, March 30. With the ther¬ 
mometer above 40° all night long, there was 
no risk of chill waiting. The turf was as 
dry and springy as in mid-April. It was 
an Ideal morning, and as far as I was 
concerned, there was but one drawback— 
there was no woodcock. At 4.30 the full 
moon, which had up to that time been 
obscured by drifting vapor, shope out clear, 
and a pheasant crowed. Then a robin 
called, and at 4.43 the first song sparrow 
sang. The east was reddening slightly and 
I gave up all hope of the woodcock. At 
4.55 robins began to sing, and a minute 
later crows in a neighboring pine grove 
woke and cawed lustily. At 5 there began 
the grand chorus of robins, crows and song 
sparrows. 
Not far from the woodcock field are 
some grassy hills, where, on March 27, 1004, 
I found a very early vesper sparrow. 1 
walked over to see whether he had again 
come in March (April 5 is usually an early 
date) and as I drew near the spot, I dis- ; 
covered that he and all his kin had arrived. 
Five males were singing at once, almost 
continuously. Rivalry was intense, tuo ; 
birds in particular were each trying to pre¬ 
empt a certain district, alighting and sing¬ 
ing on each stone in turn, only to be driven 
off by an eager pursuer. How little the 
songs of individual vesper sparrows differ, 
compared with the almost endless variety 
of the song sparrow. One of these five did 
vary somewhat from the others in the end¬ 
ing of his song, but the others were to my 
ear exactly on the same pitch, so that if 
one began an instant after the other, their 
opening notes blended perfectly. 
The morning was beginning to reward 
me. after all, for my disappointment with 
the woodcock. It is not often that one can 
have vesper sparrow music in abundance • 
in March. Moreover another surprise was 
to follow. I climbed the hill toward a 
beautiful grove of pitch pines, on the south 
slope of Arlington Heights, among which 
I knew a particularly punctual fine war¬ 
bler housed. As I entered the grove from 
the west side, I caught sight of the sun 
between the trunks of the low trees; near¬ 
ly all its light was shut off from the sur¬ 
rounding sky by the dense stratum of va¬ 
por through which I was looking, so that 
only the blazing red ball glared through 
the dark pines. A little rippling trill came 
from the pines at my left. The pine war¬ 
bler had come; and lest my readers should 
fancy that I do not share their human 
weaknesses, let me confess that I was de¬ 
lighted to remember that his arrival broke 
my earliest record by one day. 
As I stepped out of the pines I was 
greeted by a long, minor cadence from a 
wilderness of huckleberry bushes. I took 
off my hat. and saluted the first field spar¬ 
row that I have ever heard in March. On 
consulting Mr. Brewster’s Cambridge list— 
1 the “Who's Who” of the birds about Bos¬ 
ton—I found that my field sparrow had 
equalled the earliest recorded arrival. Who 
would have ventured amid the deep snow 
and low temperatures of early March to 
prophesy fine warblers and field sparrows ! 
within the month? 
Na tube Abo ut Boston' 
IV. 
BY RALPH HOFFMANN 
T HE fox sparroxvs, at any rate, have 
enjoyed the past ten days. How 
lustily they sang! How vigor¬ 
ously they scratched In the light 
snow, confident that the loose mould 
lay below. Either the flocks that were 
previously scattered over the country 
were driven into the towns by the snow, 
or their numbers were augmented even 
during the inclement weather by arrivals 
from the South. Certainly by the middle of 
last week there was an astonishing num¬ 
ber in the region about Belmont. Even in 
the heart of Cambridge, I often heard 
their sharp tseep, or caught a bit of wild 
music. 
Snowbirds, too. have been all about the 
houses, and after the snow, they were 
forced to hunt for food In every likely 
corner. I found their tracks about the 
kitchen door, and even on the snow-covered 
front-door mat. I took the hint and have 
since then been supporting a chosen few by 
scattering canary seed on the doorstep 
and over the adjacent flagging. There were 
generally, ten or a dozen birds feeding 
busily at all hours of the day; I counted 
at one time half-a-dozen fox sparrows, as 
many snowbirds, a song sparrow and a 
pair of English sparrows. This mixed flock 
fed peaceably together; the only instance 
of ill temper that I saw was a petulant 
charge by the little song sparrow against 
a fox sparrow nearly twice his weight. The 
fox sparrows were shier than the snow¬ 
birds and flew if they saw the curtain 
move. Why is it that though they share 
the uninhabited regions of the North with 
the pine grosbeaks, crossbills and redpolls, 
they have not acquired the fearlessness of 
these birds. Is it on their annual migra¬ 
tions that they have learned to fear man, 
or have the boreal finches, like the vireos 
and chickadees, a disposition naturally 
more confiding. 
No fear of injudicious charity with these 
cheerful and energetic vagrants! In fact 
my gift of seed, like much charity, is more 
to please myself than to benefit the birds. 
Fox sparrows and snowbirds spend the 
greater part of their ■ year in just such j 
vacillating w'eatlier as we have in early j 
April, and like spoiled children they know 
that spring only threatens. 
At one time the only birds on my | 
flagging were a male and female snow- i 
bird. As they drew near each other, in 
the process of feeding, they suddenly 
faced each other with head up, and then 
sparred a little, swaying their heads from 
side to side. I have seen chipping and 
Song sparrow's in the mating season as¬ 
sume the same attitude. A moment later 
the female drove at the male with the 
characteristic ill temper displayed by the 
hen bird during the courtship season. 
The male was fairly driven off the feed¬ 
ing ground. I could not help smiling at 
the changed relations which the season 
had brought about. In the winter, when 
I spread a table for the snowbirds, the 
males eat at the first table; any female 
that dares to approach is instantly 
taught her place. “In time the savage 
hull doth bear the yoke.” 
