These birds come south in winter, when their bright reddish coats and fearless ways are enjoyed by everybody. The farm children in Germany hear pretty stories about them, one of which is that the twist in the bill was caused by one of these birds injuring it in kindly trying to pull out the nails by which Jesus was fastened to the cross; so their name "cross-bill" may be thought of in two ways. SPARROWS Every roadside and field has its sparrows--brown, streaked birds which usually keep near the ground and feed upon the seeds of grasses and weeds, yet pick up innumerable insects, as do all the others of their busy tribe. These sparrows make their nests mostly on the ground; but most of the finches, rightly so called, nest in bushes and trees. All the sparrows have pleasant voices, and most of them are fair singers, while some excel in that accomplishment. Our song-sparrow, fox-sparrow, the whitethroat and others are among the best of American singing birds. It has been said that these plain brown birds have been granted the gift of voice to make up for lack of ornament; but this explanation doesn't seem to amount to much, for if it were true we ought to find the richly dressed birds songless. That this is not the case in this family, at least, is plain when we remember that our finches--and it is equally true of foreign ones--include some of the most brilliantly colored birds we have, such as the goldfinch, the purple finch, the indigo-bird, the exquisite blue and red nonpareil of Louisiana, and many others, all of which are capital musicians. Some of these finches are among our most highly prized cage-birds, such as the European bullfinch, which not only sings prettily when wild, but if caught young can be trained to learn several tunes, and between whiles pipes and chirrups gaily. The goldfinch, linnet, waxbill, and several others belong to this interesting tribe. CANARIES Canaries, too, are finches, and are plentiful in the islands from which they take their name. But if you were to see them in their own home you would hardly recognize them; for a wild canary that is yellow all over is hardly ever seen. Our cage-canaries, in fact, are an artificial breed, the natural color of the plumage being olive green, marked with black and yellow. Neither would you recognize the song of the wild birds, which is not nearly so powerful nor so varied as that of the feathered pets which we all know so well. Now and then talking canaries have been known, which had learned to utter a number of different words quite distinctly. THE SKYLARK