;
for though in New England we have many singers more brilliant than the
field sparrow, we have none that are sweeter, and few that in the long
run give more pleasure to sensitive hearers.

I found the pine-wood sparrow afterward in New Smyrna, Port Orange,
Sanford, and Tallahassee. So far as I could tell, it was always the same
bird; but I shot no specimens, and speak with no authority.[1] Living
always in the pine lands, and haunting the dense undergrowth, it is
heard a hundred times where it is seen once,--a point greatly in favor
of its effectiveness as a musician. Mr. Brewster speaks of it as singing
always from an elevated perch, while the birds that I saw in the act of
song, a very limited number, were invariably perched low. One that I
watched in New Smyrna (one of a small chorus, the others being
invisible) sang for a quarter of an hour from a stake or stump which
rose perhaps a foot above the dwarf palmetto. It was the same song that
I had heard in St. Augustine; only the birds here were in a livelier
mood, and sang _out_ instead of _sotto voce_. The long introductory note
sounded sometimes as if it were indrawn, and often, if not always, had a
considerable burr in it. Once in a while the strain was caught up at the
end and sung over again, after the manner of the field sparrow,--one of
that bird's prettiest tricks. At other times the song was delivered with
full voice, and then repeated almost under the singer's breath. This was
done beautifully in the Port Orange flat-woods, the bird being almost at
my feet. I had seen him a moment before, and saw him again half a minute
later, but at that instant he was out of sight in the scrub, and
seemingly on the ground. This feature of the song, one of its chief
merits and its most striking peculiarity, is well described by Mr.
Brewster. "Now," he says, "it has a full, bell-like ring that seems to
fill the air around; next it is soft and low and inexpressibly tender;
now it is clear again, but so modulated that the sound seems to come
from a great distance."[2]

[Footnote 1: Two races of the pine-wood sparrow are recognized by
ornithologists, _Pucaea aestivalis_ and _P. aestivalis bachmanii_, and
both of them have been found in Florida; but, if I understand the matter
right, _Pucaea aestivalis_ is the common and typical Florida bird.]

[Footnote 2: _Bulletin on the Nuttall Ornithological Club_, vol. vii. p.
98.]

Not many other birds, I think (I cannot recall any),