as night to me—
Nothing can shake my conviction firm.
There’s no such thing as the early worm.”
—O. Herford.

fox sparrow.
From col. Chi. Acad. Sciences. Copyrighted by
Nature Study Pub. Co., 1898, Chicago.

THE FOX-COLORED SPARROW.

N “Wood Notes Wild,” S. P. Cheney says this song-loving Sparrow has a sweet voice and a pleasing song, which he has set to music. No Sparrow, he says, sings with a better quality of tone. A distinguished musician himself, no one was better qualified to give a final opinion upon the subject. Others have spoken in praise of it, Burroughs characterizing it as “a strong, richly modulated whistle, the finest Sparrow note I have ever heard.” Baird says, “in the spring the male becomes quite musical, and is one of our sweetest and most remarkable singers. His voice is loud, clear, and melodious; his notes full, rich, and varied; and his song is unequalled by any of this family that I have ever heard.” Mr. Torrey finds a “Thrush-like” quality in the song of the Fox Sparrow. In his “Birds in the Bush” Mr. Torrey describes an interesting contest as follows:

“One afternoon I stood still while a Fox Sparrow and a Song Sparrow sang alternately on either side of me, both exceptionally good vocalists, and each doing his best. The songs were of about equal length, and as far as theme was concerned were not a little alike; but the Fox Sparrow’s tone was both louder and more mellow than the others, while his notes were longer,—more sustained,—and his voice was ‘carried’ from one pitch to another. On the whole, I had no hesitation about giving him the palm; but I am bound to say that his rival was a worthy competitor.”

The Fox-colored Sparrow is also one of the largest and finest of his tribe, breeding from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Labrador north into Alaska; in winter it is met with south over the whole of the eastern United States to the Gulf coast. Audubon found it nesting in Labrador from the middle of June to the 5th of July. Its nest has been found in trees and on the ground in the Arctic regions, on the Yukon river in July. According to many observers, the nests are, for the most part, placed on the ground, usually concealed by the drooping branches of evergreens. They are made of grass and moss, lined with fine grass and feathers. Some nests are three or four inches in depth, strong, compact, and handsome. The eggs are three or five, oval in form, of a clayey greenish ground color, dotted with dull reddish brown and chocolate. They vary in coloration.

In the early spring the Fox Sparrow is often seen associated with small parties of Juncos, in damp thickets and roadside shrubbery; later, according to Mr. Bicknell, it takes more to woodsides, foraging on leaf-strewn slopes where there is little or no undergrowth. In the autumn it is found in hedgerows, thickets and weedy grainfields, rarely however, straying far from some thickety cover. It is a great scratcher among dead leaves, and “can make the wood rubbish fly in a way which, in proportion to its size, a barn-yard fowl could scarcely excel.”

The Sparrows are worthy of close study, many of them possessing habits of great beauty and interest.

BOB WHITE!

I’m a game bird, not a song bird with beautiful feathers, flitting all day from tree to tree, but just a plain-looking little body, dressed in sober colors, like a Quaker.

It wouldn’t do for me to wear a red hat, and a green coat, and a yellow vest. Oh, no!, that would be very foolish of me, indeed. What a mark I would be for every man and boy who can fire a gun or throw a stone, as I run along the ground in clearings and cultivated fields. That’s the reason I wear so plain a coat. At the first glance you would take me for a bunch of dried grass or a bit of earth, but at the first movement, off I go, running for dear life to some thickly wooded cover, where I hide till danger is passed.

Cute! Yes, I think so. You would have to be sharp, too, if you were a game bird. Through the summer we don’t have much trouble, but just as soon as cold weather sets in, and our broods have grown to an eatable size, “pop” go the guns, and “whirr” go our wings as we fly through the air. It is only at such times we take wing, sometimes seeking refuge in a tree from our enemies. I’m sorry we are such nice birds—to eat—for really we like to stay around farmhouses, and barn-yards, eating with the chickens and other fowl. We are easily tamed, and the farmers often thank us for the injurious insects we eat, and the seeds of weeds.

How do we know they thank us? Why, we must know that, when they scatter seed for us on the snow. Kind deeds speak louder than words, for in the winter we suffer a great deal. Sometimes when it is very cold we burrow down under the snow, in snow-houses, as it were, to keep warm. That is risky, though; for when it rains and then freezes over, we are in a trap. A great many Quail die in this way during a hard winter.

Is Quail another name for Bob White? Yes, but people like Bob White better. Did you ever hear me whistle? If not, come out in the country in the spring, and hear me call to my mate. I sit on a fence rail, and, to let her know where I am, I whistle, Bob White! Bob White! and if she pretends to be bashful, and doesn’t answer me at once, I whistle again, Bob, Bob White! Poor Bob White! She takes pity on me then, and comes at my call.

bob white.
From col. F. M. Woodruff. Copyrighted by
Nature Study Pub. Co., 1898, Chicago.

BOB WHITE.

OB WHITE is a plump, fine-looking fellow, known in the New England and Middle States as the Quail and in the Southern States as the Partridge. It is said, however, that these names belong to other and quite different birds, and at the suggestion of Prof. Baird, Bob White, which is its call note, has become its accepted and present name. In the language of Mr. N. S. Goss these birds appear to thrive best in the presence of man, and were they protected during our cold winters, would soon become quite tame. They often nest near our dwellings. “In the spring of 1867,” says Mr. Goss, “I was shown on Owl Creek, Woodson County, Kansas, a nest containing nineteen eggs. It was placed in the dooryard, and not over twenty-five yards from the house;