My study of the clay-colored sparrows was restricted to their habits in migration, at which time they move about in more or less compact little flocks, gathering seeds and chanting their monotonous trills. While I first found these sparrows near Peabody, they were also fairly common, a few days later, in northeastern Kansas, about a mile back from the Missouri River, where their low alto strains formed a kind of gray background for the high-pitched trills of the Harris sparrows and the loud pipings of the cardinals. Quaint as our little contralto's solos are, they have a distinct fascination for me, and now that I no longer live in the Sunflower state, I miss them sorely when the springtime comes. These sparrows do not, I believe, breed in Kansas, but are known to establish their households in the northern part of Illinois, central and northern Iowa, the Red River region in Minnesota, the country drained by the upper Missouri River and its tributaries, Manitoba as far north as the Saskatchewan River, and the plains and bases of the foothills of eastern Colorado. Their nests are built on the ground or in low bushes, and from three to five eggs, of a greenish-blue tint, flecked with cinnamon-brown, are deposited. They spend the winters in southern Texas and still farther south. Only "accidentally," as the word goes, are they known in the eastern part of the United States, and for that reason little has yet been written about them in popular books on birds. The time will come, no doubt, when they will have a well-recognized place in bird literature, just as the chippie, the vesper sparrow, and the song sparrow have to-day. In bird study it is never safe to take too much for granted. One must be constantly on the alert, and, more than that, one must be able to make fine distinctions with both the ear and the eye. Here is a case in point. For many days, while strolling about in quest of bird lore, I heard a quaint little song in the bushy clumps, and that, too, in some of the most out-of-the-way places. "It is nothing but the house wren," I muttered to myself, I know not how often. "It isn't worth while to look for it when there are new birds to be found. Still, it's singular," I continued, "that the house wren should dwell in such secluded places. It would seem that his name is a misnomer--at least, in a good many instances." Several times I stopped to listen more intently to the rolling ditty. "There's something odd about that wren's song," I repeated. "Does the house wren always close its song with the rising inflection, as if it were asking a question?"