While it feeds upon the bits of sea-food washed ashore to
the edge of the marshes, it gives us perhaps the best chance we ever get,
outside of a museum, to study the bird's characteristics of plumage.
"Both the sharp-tailed and the seaside finches are crepuscular," says Dr.
Abbott, in "The Birds About Us." They run up and down the reeds and on the
water's edge long after most birds have gone to sleep.
SONG SPARROW (Melospiza fasciata) Finch family
Length -- 6 to 6.5 inches. About the same size as the English
sparrow.
Male and Female -- Brown head, with three longitudinal gray bands
Brown stripe on sides of throat. Brownish-gray back streaked
With rufous. Underneath gray, shading to white, heavily
streaked with darkest brown. A black spot on breast. Wings
without bars. Tail plain grayish brown.
Range -- North America, from Fur Countries to the Gulf States.
Winters from southern Illinois and Massachusetts to the Gulf.
Migrations -- March. November. A few birds remain at the north
All the year.
Here is a veritable bird neighbor, if ever there was one; at home in our
gardens and hedges, not often farther away than the roadside, abundant
everywhere during nearly every month in the year, and yet was there ever one
too many? There is scarcely an hour in the day, too, when its delicious,
ecstatic song may not be heard; in the darkness of midnight, just before dawn,
when its voice is almost the first to respond to the chipping sparrow's wiry
trill and the robin's warble; in the cool of the morning, the heat of noon,
the hush of evening -- ever the simple, homely, sweet melody that every good
American has learned to love in childhood.
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