bit the bird has
of slightly elevating this part of its plumage, as if to make more
conspicuous its pretty markings. They are great scratchers, and will
often remain several minutes scratching in one place, like a hen. Yet,
unlike the hen and like all hoppers, they scratch with both feet at
once, which is by no means the best way to scratch.

The white-throats often sing during their sojourning both in fall and
spring; but only on one occasion have I ever heard any part of the song
of the white-crowned, and that proceeded from what I took to be a young
male, one October morning, just as the sun was rising. It was pitched
very low, like a half-forgotten air, but it was very sweet. It was the
song of the vesper sparrow and the white-throat in one. In his breeding
haunts he must be a superior songster, but he is very chary of his music
while on his travels.

The sparrows are all meek and lowly birds. They are of the grass, the
fences, the low bushes, the weedy wayside places. Nature has denied them
all brilliant tints, but she has given them sweet and musical voices.
Theirs are the quaint and simple lullaby songs of childhood. The
white-throat has a timid, tremulous strain, that issues from the low
bushes or from behind the fence, where its cradle is hid. The song
sparrow modulates its simple ditty as softly as the lining of its own
nest. The vesper sparrow has only peace and gentleness in its strain.

What pretty nests, too, the sparrows build! Can anything be more
exquisite than a sparrow's nest under a grassy or mossy bank? What care
the bird has taken not to disturb one straw or spear of grass, or
thread of moss! You cannot approach it and put your hand into it without
violating the place more or less, and yet the little architect has
wrought day after day and left no marks. There has been an excavation,
and yet no grain of earth appears to have been moved. If the nest had
slowly and silently grown like the grass and the moss, it could not
have been more nicely adjusted to its place and surroundings. There is
absolutely nothing to tell the eye it is there. Generally a few spears
of dry grass fall down from the turf above and form a slight screen
before it. How commonly and coarsely it begins, blending with the debris
that lies about, and how it refines and comes into form as it approaches
the centre, which is modeled so perfectly and lined so softly! Then,
when the full complement of eggs is laid, and incubation has