Show L Out of Doors in the West Sketches of Natural History in the Rocky Mountain Plateau Edited by J. H. Professor of Nature Study in the University of Utah Notes on the Song Sparrow by Various Observers Fall Plowing to Destroy Farm Pests Chiefly from Publications of the Illinois Experiment Station The violet Awakens at thy and peers' from out Its fragrant as if the season yet Remained in i i I from the The columbine its crimson f 7 Thou art returned On a glad errand to rebuild thy And fan anew thy gentle fire that burned Within thy i But thy sweet Thou darling of the no ear SONG SARROW That careless as its slender stalk The zephyr s well I know i Why thou art here thus and why the bowers So near the sun haye lesser charms than i Our land of i i Thy sage And prompts thy if I knew Like- thee to sing like thee- the heart to fire should enchanted throng and- beauty sue To hear my H. At our this we were honored by the presence and pleased by the friendliness of several pairs of song which nested in dense clumps of young trees growing among the rasp-perry and gooseberry There were also vesper sparrows in considerable white-crowned sparrows for ft and flocks of Audubon m These will be among the birds to be noticed in this but chiefly by those whose life study of these creatures has qualified them to speak more fully and more accurately of these feathered friends than could a chance The Sweetest The song sparrow is the most tuneful of the sparrow family by far sweetest and most It is the first singing bird of ing precedence even the- blue and it en remains until the depth of The notes or chant of its song are but very resembling the beginning of the canary's It usually builds Its nest on the under a tuft of cr in the mazes of a low and conceals its nest with the Like the chipping it sometimes uses horsehair for an inner and the four or bluish white profusely marked with reddish are always' softly bedded- by March sun releases' the what voice that first rejoices at the sound and tells us of song Up floats' his cheerful ditty and very merry are birds that we should miss if they disappeared from the places where i we been accustomed find but there are others that we could not get along and the song sparrow is one of Each Has Its would be better to say song as this yet friendly in its adaptation to the various conditions that enable it to live in so many parts of North has a score of species that vary in or yet every one of these has the attributes for which we love our own little eastern song sparrow which lives altogether east of the Mable Osgood At the extreme northerly por-lion of Alaska is found the largest of the the Aleutian song i Coming down to the coast of British where is inches year find sooty song the darkest of all in The Utah When we reach the arid regions of Nevada and i h a rainfall of only six find the palest of the desert song o the America lives the Mexican song the whether we live or we have singer with us will surely reveal him- 1 and if we do not at first recognize his will sing his way straight into our Mabel Osgood The mountain song which breeds in the Rocky is like the- but with wings and tail bill coloration The eastern bird has a reddish a cloak of reddish brown it six and one-half inches the western bird is Both are streaked with black above and on the Food and If you wish to have song sparrows about the remember that there is no greater lure foi them than It may be that constant bathing is one of the secrets of their good for certain it is that they are fret from many of the epidemics tha destroy so many have seen the pair of birds belonging to the fan-covered nest bathing when the June twilight was so deep that I could not distinguish their and identified them by the sharp alarm note of and the fact that while they were splashing in the the in which the young were then was left unguarded for the but as soon as my motions craze for cleaning removing the wild hedges that mean so much to one's inner sense of beauty and the pleasure of the i led their suspicions they appeared close by and tried to scold me away and preen their soaking feathers at the same All through the long nesting season the sweet singer is an insect both in the feeding of its young and largely in its own while for the rest of the year it may be counted in the front ranks of the weed and at all times it may be included among the birds who do no harm to the fruits of farm and garden such berries as it usually takes being of small wild The chief dangers that threaten this wholly lovable bird are from egg-hunting the domestic and the sort of civilization that not only cuts down woodlands for the evolution of the land to building but fairly sacrifices the and in a |