Me' fah'-fah'-fah'-fah'-fah'

This song is more appropriate to the summer. There is more of fullness
and beauty in it, more of the quality of the woodthrush's songs, for
which it is often mistaken.

* * * * *

From a tiny hawthorne bush, no higher than a collie's back, a field
sparrow flies nervously to a low limb of a hickory tree and begs that
her nest be not disturbed. It is neatly placed in the middle of the
bush about a foot from the ground, made of medium grasses and rootlets
and lined with finer grasses and horsehair. The three bluish-white
eggs with rufous markings at the larger end are the field-sparrow's
own. Into a nest found a month ago, at the foot of a yarrow stalk, the
cowbird had sneaked three speckled eggs, leaving only one of the
pretty eggs of the field-sparrow. At that time the cowbirds were to be
seen everywhere; they chattered every morning in the trees, and the
females left their unwelcome eggs in nearly every nest. One little
red-eyed vireo's nest had five cowbirds' eggs,--none of her own. But
the birds which are building now are generally safe from the
parasite. Only rarely is a cowbird's egg found after the middle of
July. No cowbirds have been seen since the first week of the month,
save the young one on the stump, which the field-sparrow was feeding
this morning. They disappear early, seeking seclusion for the
moulting. When they emerge from their hiding places they form into
flocks, spending their days in the grain-fields and near the rivers
where the food is most abundant and easy to procure. At nightfall they
congregate, like the red-winged blackbirds, in the sand-bar willows on