What the bird lacks in beauty it
abundantly makes up in good cheer. Not at all retiring, though never bold, it
chooses some conspicuous perch on a bush or tree to deliver its outburst of
song, and sings away with serene unconsciousness. Its artlessness is charming.
Thoreau writes in his "Summer" that the country girls in Massachusetts hear
the bird say: "Maids, maids, maids, hang on your teakettle,
teakettle-ettle-ettle." The call-note, a metallic chip, is equally
characteristic of the bird's irrepressible vivacity. It has still another
musical expression, however, a song more prolonged and varied than its usual
performance, that it seems to sing only on the wing.
Of course, the song sparrow must sometimes fly upward, but whoever sees it fly
anywhere but downward into the thicket that it depends upon to conceal it from
too close inspection? By pumping its tail as it flies, it seems to acquire
more than the ordinary sparrow's velocity.
Its nest, which is likely to be laid flat on the ground, except where
field-mice are plentiful (in which case it is elevated into the crotch of a
bush), is made of grass, strips of bark, and leaves, and lined with finer
grasses and hair. Sometimes three broods may be reared in a season, but even
the cares of providing insects and seeds enough for so many hungry babies
cannot altogether suppress the cheerful singer.
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