The Song Sparrow

Teachers’ Story

“He does not wear a Joseph’s coat of many colors, smart and gay
His suit is Quaker brown and gray, with darker patches at his throat.
And yet of all the well-dressed throng, not one can sing so brave a song.
It makes the pride of looks appear a vain and foolish thing to hear
His ‘Sweet, sweet, sweet, very merry cheer.’”

“A lofty place he does not love, he sits by choice and well at ease
In hedges and in little trees, that stretch their slender arms above
The meadow brook; and then he sings till all the field with pleasure rings;
And so he tells in every ear, that lowly homes to heaven are near
In ‘Sweet, sweet, sweet, very merry cheer.’”

—Henry Van Dyke.

Children should commit to memory the poem from which the above stanzas were taken; seldom in literature, have detailed accurate observation and poetry been so happily combined as in these verses. The lesson might begin in March when we are all listening eagerly for bird voices, and the children should be asked to look out for a little, brown bird which sings, “Sweet, sweet, sweet, very merry cheer,” or, as Thoreau interprets it, “Maids! Maids! Maids! Hang on the teakettle, teakettle-ettle-ettle.” In early childhood I learned to distinguish this sparrow by its “Teakettle” song. Besides this song, it has others quite as sweet; and when alarmed it utters a sharp “T’chink, t’chink.”

The song sparrow prefers the neighborhood of brooks and ponds which are bordered with bushes, and also the hedges planted by nature along rail or other field fences, and it has a special liking for the shrubbery about gardens. Its movements and flight are very characteristic; it usually sits on the tip-top of a shrub or low tree when it sings, but when disturbed never rises in the air but drops into a low flight and plunges into a thicket with a defiant twitch of the tail which says plainly, “find me if you can.”

The color and markings of this bird are typical of the sparrows. The head is a warm brown with a gray streak along the center of the crown and one above each eye, with a dark line through the eye. The back is brown with darker streaks. The throat is white with a dark spot on either side; the breast is white spotted with brown with a large, dark blotch at its very center; this breast blotch distinguishes this bird from all other sparrows. The tail and wings are brown and without buff or white bars or other markings. The tail is long, rounded and very expressive of emotions, and makes the bird look more slender than the English sparrow.

The nest is usually placed on the ground or in low bushes not more than five feet from the ground; it varies much in both size and material; it is sometimes constructed of coarse weeds and grasses; and sometimes only fine grass is used. Sometimes it is lined with hair, and again, with fine grass; sometimes it is deep, but occasionally is shallow. The eggs have a whitish ground-color tinged with blue or green, but are so blotched and marked with brown that they are safe from observation of enemies. The nesting season begins in May, and there are usually three and sometimes four broods; but so far as I have observed, a nest is never used for two consecutive broods. The song sparrow stays with us in New York State very late in the fall, and a few stay in sheltered places all winter. The quality in this bird which endears him to us all is the spirit of song which stays with him; his sweet trill may be heard almost any month of the year, and he has a charming habit of singing in his dreams, if sudden noise disturbs his slumber.

The song sparrow is not only the dearest of little neighbors, but it also works lustily for our good and for its own food at the same time. It destroys cutworms, plant-lice, caterpillars, canker-worms, ground beetles, grasshoppers and flies; in winter it destroys thousands of weed seeds, which otherwise would surely plant themselves to our undoing. Every boy and girl should take great pains to drive away stray cats and to teach the family puss not to meddle with birds; for cats are the worst of all the song sparrow’s enemies, destroying thousands of its nestlings every year.