e was. He seemed
to be rather far off: if I waited his pleasure, he would perhaps move
toward me; if I disturbed him, he would probably become silent. So I sat
on the end of a sleeper and listened. It was not great music. It made me
think of the swamp sparrow; and the swamp sparrow is far from being a
great singer. A single prolonged, drawling note (in that respect unlike
the swamp sparrow, of course), followed by a succession of softer and
sweeter ones,--that was all, when I came to analyze it; but that is no
fair description of what I heard. The quality of the song is not there;
and it was the quality, the feeling, the soul of it, if I may say what I
mean, that made it, in the true sense of a much-abused word, charming.

There could be little doubt that the bird was a pine-wood sparrow; but
such things are not to be taken for granted. Once or twice, indeed, the
thought of some unfamiliar warbler had crossed my mind. At last,
therefore, as the singer still kept out of sight, I leaped the ditch and
pushed into the scrub. Happily I had not far to go; he had been much
nearer than I thought. A small bird flew up before me, and dropped
almost immediately into a clump of palmetto. I edged toward the spot and
waited. Then the song began again, this time directly in front of me,
but still far-away-sounding and dreamy. I find that last word in my
hasty note penciled at the time, and can think of no other that
expresses the effect half so well. I looked and looked, and all at once
there sat the bird on a palmetto leaf. Once again he sang, putting up
his head. Then he dropped out of sight, and I heard nothing more. I had
seen only his head and neck,--enough to show him a sparrow, and almost
of necessity the pine-wood sparrow. No other strange member of the finch
family was to be looked for in such a place.

On further acquaintance, let me say at once, _Pucaea aestivalis_ proved
to be a more versatile singer than the performances of my first bird
would have led me to suppose. He varies his tune freely, but always
within a pretty narrow compass; as is true, also, of the field sparrow,
with whom, as I soon came to feel, he has not a little in common. It is
in musical form only that he suggests the swamp sparrow. In tone and
spirit, in the qualities of sweetness and expressiveness, he is nearly
akin to _Spizella pusilla_. One does for the Southern pine barren what
the other does for the Northern berry pasture. And this is high praise