The field or vesper sparrow, called also grass finch 8 and bay-winged sparrow, a bird slightly larger than the song sparrow and of a lighter gray color, is abundant in all our upland fields and pastures, and is a very sweet songster.  It builds upon the ground, without the slightest cover or protection, and also roosts there.  Walking through the fields at dusk, I frequently start them up almost beneath my feet.  When disturbed by day, they fly with a quick, sharp movement, showing two white quills in the tail.  The traveler along the country roads disturbs them earthing their wings in the soft dry earth, or sees them skulking and flitting along the fences in front of him.  They run in the furrow in advance of the team, or perch upon the stones a few rods off.  They sing much after sundown, hence the aptness of the name vesper sparrow, which a recent writer, Wilson Flagg, has bestowed upon them.

In the meadows and low, wet lands the savanna sparrow is met with, and may be known by its fine, insect-like song; in the swamp, the swamp sparrow.

The fox sparrow, the largest and handsomest species of this family, comes to us in the fall, from the North, where it breeds.  Likewise the tree or Canada sparrow, and the white-crowned and white-throated sparrow.

The social sparrow, alias “hairbird,” alias “red-headed chipping-bird,” is the smallest of the sparrows, and I believe, the only one that builds in trees.

The finches, as a class, all have short conical bills, with tails more or less forked.  The purple finch heads the list in varied musical abilities.

Besides the groups of our more familiar birds which I have thus hastily outlined, there are numerous other groups, more limited in specimens but comprising some of our best-known songsters.  The bobolink, for instance, has properly no congener.  The famous mockingbird of the Southern States belongs to a genus which has but two other representatives in the Atlantic States, namely, the catbird and the long-tailed or ferruginous thrush.

The wrens are a large and interesting family, and as songsters are noted for vivacity and volubility.  The more common species are the house wren, the marsh wren, the great Carolina wren, and the winter wren, the latter perhaps deriving its name from the fact that it breed in the North.  It is an exquisite songster, and pours forth its notes so rapidly, and with such sylvan sweetness and cadence, that it seems to go off like a musical alarm.

Wilson called the kinglets wrens, but they have little to justify the name, except that the ruby-crown’s song is of the same gushing, lyrical character as that referred to above.  Dr. Brewer was entranced with the song of one of these tiny minstrels in the woods of New Brunswick, and thought he had found the author of the strain in the black-poll warbler.  He seems loath to believe that a bird so small as either of the kinglets could possess such vocal powers.  It may indeed have been the winter wren, but from my own observation I believe the ruby-crowned kinglet quite capable of such a performance.