plain, unadorned pastures.  Go to those broad, smooth, uplying fields where the cattle and sheep are grazing, and sit down in the twilight on one of those warm, clean stones, and listen to this song.  On every side, near and remote, from out the short grass which the herds are cropping, the strain rises.  Two or three long, silver notes of peace and rest, ending in some subdued trills and quavers, constitute each separate song.  Often, you will catch only one or two of the bars, the breeze having blown the minor part away.  Such unambitious, quiet, unconscious melody!  It is one of the most characteristic sounds in nature.  The grass, the stones, the stubble, the furrow, the quiet herds, and the warm twilight among the hills, are all subtly expressed in this song; this is what they are at last capable of.

The female builds a plain nest in the open field, without so much as a bush or thistle or tuft of grass to protect it or mark its site; you may step upon it, or the cattle may tread it into the ground.  But the danger from this source, I presume, the bird considers less than that from another.  Skunks and foxes have a very impertinent curiosity, as Finchie well knows; and a bank or hedge, or a rank growth of grass or thistles, that might promise protection and cover to mouse or bird, these cunning rogues would be apt to explore most thoroughly.  The partridge is undoubtedly acquainted with the same process of reasoning; for, like the vesper-bird, she, too, nests in open, unprotected places, avoiding all show of concealment,—­coming from the tangled and almost impenetrable parts of the forest to the clean, open woods, where she can command all the approaches and fly with equal ease in any direction.

Another favorite sparrow, but little noticed, is the wood or bush sparrow, usually called by the ornithologists Spizella pusilla.  Its size and form is that of the socialis, but is less distinctly marked, being of a duller redder tinge.  He prefers remote bushy heathery fields, where his song is one of the sweetest to be heard.  It is sometimes very noticeable, especially early in spring.  I remember sitting one bright day in the still leafless April woods, when one of these birds struck up a few rods from me, repeating its lay at short intervals for nearly an hour.  It was a perfect piece of wood-music, and was of course all the more noticeable for being projected upon such a broad unoccupied page of silence.  Its song is like the words, fe-o, fe-o, fe-o, few, few, few, fee fee fee, uttered at first high and leisurely, but running very rapidly toward the close, which is low and soft.