reas in the
Buckeye state these birds are permanent residents, remaining throughout
the year, and therefore they feel sufficiently at home to tune their
lyres at all seasons. On the other hand, being only winter visitors in
Kansas, they do not seem to be able to overcome their shyness; either
that, or their wind harps are out of tune. As a matter of fact,
migrating birds seldom sing a great deal in their winter homes, their
best lyrical efforts being husbanded for their breeding haunts. I once
spent part of the month of June in Minnesota, almost directly north of
my Kansas field of research, and there found these charming minstrels
as tuneful and affable as the most exacting bird lover could wish.
Perhaps some of the very sparrows that spend the winter in silence in
northeastern Kansas trill their finest arias in their summer homes on
the shores of Lake Minnetonka or in the boggy hollows in the
neighborhood of Duluth.

When I first began to plan for moving back to Ohio, I was foolish
enough to fear that the song sparrows of that state might have changed
their habits during the years of my absence, and that I should be
disappointed in them: but no need of borrowing trouble on their
account, for they were the same blithe and familiar birds, trilling
their sweetest chansons in the trees in the residence portion of the
town in which I lived. And sing! Were there ever birds with more
dulcet tones, with finer voice register, or with a greater variety of
tunes in their repertoire?

Going back to Kansas in winter, we note that the song sparrows, instead
of remaining at one place, shifted about a good deal more than I had
ever known them to do in the East. In December a pair found a dwelling
in the weed clumps and brush heaps of a hollow a short distance from
the Missouri River; but they soon deserted this spot, well sheltered as
it was, none being seen there until the twenty-third of February. It
surprised me to find another pair, and sometimes two pairs, in a
thicket right on the bank of the wide river, where they were exposed to
many of the winter blasts, especially those that swept down from the
frozen north. Up in the deep, winding ravine they might have had
excellent shelter and, so far as I could see, just as good feeding.
However, I have long ago learned that there is no accounting for tastes
in the bird realm any more than in the human realm.

The hardiest of the _Mniotiltidae_ tribe are the myrtle warblers,