Page:Birdcraft-1897.djvu/242

 ;Nest: 
 * Location variable; on ground or in low bush.


 * Eggs:
 * Grayish white, spotted, marked, and clouded with browns and lavender.


 * Range:
 * Eastern United States to the Plains.

The Song Sparrow is the darling among the Song-birds; the Goldfinch's gay coat, the Bluebird's confidential murmur, or the melody of the Thrushes cannot rival him in our affections, even though they may possess superior qualities. Plain as his coat is, he carries his identity in the little black streaks that form two spots on his breast, and all the year we may hope to hear his simple domestic ballad. Thoreau says: "Some birds are poets and sing all summer. They are the true singers. Any man can write verses in the love season. We are most interested in those birds that sing for the love of the music, and not of their mates; who meditate their strains and amuse themselves with singing; the birds whose strains are of deeper sentiment."

This is the Song Sparrow. He is the most constant singer among our northern birds; he has other songs in his repertoire beside love-songs, even though he excels in these, his later efforts lacking their variety. He sings to you from the snow-powdered trees in February, to keep up your spirits. In March he comes out on a bush and tells you that the buds are swelling and that it is really spring. In April, May, and June he is in an ecstasy; he sings to his mate, to the earth, to the sky, and to you, varying his theme until the simple melody of three notes and an appoggiatura is lost in endless changes.

In July his song loses quality, and August heat drives him, somewhat discouraged, to moult in bushy seclusion, but does not wholly silence him. With middle September he emerges and begins anew, greeting the migrating birds as they return; and all through October his notes sound clearly above the rustling leaves, and some morning he comes to the dogwood by the arbour and announces the first frost in a song that is more direct than that in which he told of spring. While the chestnuts fall from their velvet nests, he is singing in the hedge; but when the brush heaps burn