“The Catbird stirs one’s curiosity. We wonder what he will say and do next; and when he throws back his head to sing, we never can tell whether a dreamy melody or a series of jeers will be the result. But the Song Sparrow we love for himself alone, from the very beginning of our acquaintance. “In personal appearance he bears nearly all the markings of his characteristic family, but the few exceptions, if remembered, will tell you his name: his brown crown-feathers have a gray parting-line, _his wings have no white bars or yellow markings_, while the breast and sides are streaked; one large spot in the centre, with sometimes a smaller one close to it, tell the Song Sparrow’s identity. “He is seldom seen feeding on the ground like the Chippy, but loves the shelter of low bushes, from which he gives his warning cry of ‘Dick-Dick!’ and then flies out with a jerking motion of the tail and, never going high into the air, perches on another bush. If he wishes to sing, he climbs from the dense lower branches to a spray well above the others, as if he needed plenty of air and light for the effort, and bubbles into song. “As to the nest, well made of roots and bedded soft with fine grass and hairs, the Song Sparrow uses his own taste, as all birds do, and though the favourite place is within the crown of a small bush not far above the ground, or even in a grass tuft close to the earth itself, yet I have found them in very different places. “Down in the garden a Song Sparrow once insisted on building, not only in a flower-bed, but among the stalks of perishable plants that would wither long before the young left the nest. To prevent disaster, we drove stakes on each side of the nest, fastened a fruit-box underneath, and a shelter overhead, so that, when the overhanging blossoms faded, the sun might not make broiled squabs of the little ones. This brood was raised successfully, but to our surprise the Sparrows began a second nest directly opposite the first in the brush of the line of sweet-peas. The location was chosen with more judgment, but in picking the pea blossoms I passed within a foot of the nest every morning during the whole time of building, hatching, and feeding of the young. “This did not trouble the parents in the least; they seemed to know that I would neither hurt them nor intrude upon their privacy, by watching their movements too closely, and the father of the family repaid me by such music as I never before believed could come from the throat of even a Song Sparrow. “At first I wondered why they should have chosen a garden border, when there were so many near-by bushes about the orchard edge, and tufted grasses and scrubs in a waste meadow over the way. For, familiar as the Song Sparrow is, and fearless, too, yet he is a reserved bird even among his kin, not even travelling in great flocks, and does not care, even when in the full spring ecstasy of song, to be very near another singer.