four o'clock the most melodions hour of the day. T-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r he trills from the ground, before even a Robin wakes, and then, as the music swells, he is lost in the harmony.
Who can fail to know the Chippy, whose mite of a gray-brown body is set off by a chestnut-coloured velvet cap; whose chirp, as he hops about the door craving crumbs, is as familiar as his pretty air of sociability. He has many little points of identity that separate him from the mazes of the Sparrow tribe. He seldom, if ever, nests upon the ground, and his nest, well built and carefully lined, is distinctive.
Here in the garden he shows a preference for high trees; out of eight nests built last season within the garden limits, one was in a Deutzia shrub about thresfeet from the ground; four were in tufts of needles on the horizontal boughs of spruces, varying from eight to twenty feet high; and three were in white pines at distances of from twenty to forty feet from the ground.
I am inclined to think that the nesting-habits of birds are adapted by circumstances and their desire to locate in certain places. The Chippies like the protection and society of the house and build near it. Low bushes and undergrowth in this vicinity are limited, and the Catbirds usurp the most desirable shrubs. Not finding room below the Chippy ascends, as his fellow men adapt themselves to the apart. ment house, so that from being ground-walkers they become "cliff-dwellers."
Field Sparrow: Spisella pusilla.
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