“Sure enough, in the afternoon they came back again!  I kept them at night in this way for several weeks, and one afternoon several Snowflakes came in with them.  Later on this same winter five thin starving Quails came to the barnyard and fed with the hens.  I tried several times to lure or drive them into the barn with the Juncos, but they would not go.  Finally, one evening when I shut the chickens up, what did these Quails do but run into the hen-house with the others and remain as the guests of our good-natured Cochins until spring!

“I well remember how happy I was when grandmother gave me half a dollar and told me to go over to the mill and buy a bag of grain sweepings for my ‘boarders’; how angry I was with the miller when he said, ’Those Quails’ll be good eatin’ when they’re fat’; and how he laughed when I shouted, ‘It’s only cannibals that eat up their visitors!’”

The Slate-colored Junco

Length about six inches.

Dark slate color; throat and breast slate-gray; belly and side tail-feathers white; beak pinkish-white.

A Citizen of North America, nesting in the northern tier of States and northward, and also on high mountains as far south as Georgia.

A Tree Trapper, Seed Sower, and Weed Warrior, according to season.

THE SONG SPARROW

(EVERY ONE’S DARLING)

“This Sparrow, who guides you to his name by the dark spot on the breast as clearly as the Peabody-bird does by his white cravat, is every one’s bird and every one’s darling,” said the Doctor, as if he were speaking of a dear friend.

“When you have learned his many songs, his pretty sociable ways, and have seen his cheerfulness and patience in hard times, you will, I know, agree with me that all possible good bird qualities are packed into this little streaked Sparrow.

[Illustration:  Song Sparrow.]

“Constancy is his first good point.  If we live in southern New England or westward to Illinois, we shall probably have him with us all the year, wearing the same colored feathers after the moult as before, not shedding his sweet temper and song with his spring coat.  Now there are a great many birds, as you will see, that wear full-dress suits and sing wonderful songs in spring and early summer, while the weather is warm, food plentiful, and everything full of promise; but whose music and color vanish from the garden and roadside when frost comes.  Yet the Song Sparrow sings throughout the year, except in the storms of February and March—­not always the varied spring song, but still a sweet little tune.

“The Song Sparrow is humble and retiring about the location of his nest, usually putting it on or near the ground; though of course some pairs may have ideas of their own about nest-building, and choose a bird-box or even a hole in a tree.  One thing you must remember about birds and their ways:  Nature has fixed a few important laws that must not be changed, but has given birds and other animals liberty to follow their own tastes in all other matters.