gladly the next morning, they
did not seem afraid.

"Sure enough, in the afternoon they came back again! I kept them at
night in this way for several weeks, and one afternoon several
Snowflakes came in with them. Later on this same winter five thin
starving Quails came to the barnyard and fed with the hens. I tried
several times to lure or drive them into the barn with the Juncos, but
they would not go. Finally, one evening when I shut the chickens up,
what did these Quails do but run into the hen-house with the others and
remain as the guests of our good-natured Cochins until spring!

"I well remember how happy I was when grandmother gave me half a dollar
and told me to go over to the mill and buy a bag of grain sweepings for
my 'boarders'; how angry I was with the miller when he said, 'Those
Quails'll be good eatin' when they're fat'; and how he laughed when I
shouted, 'It's only cannibals that eat up their visitors!'"

The Slate-colored Junco

Length about six inches.

Dark slate color; throat and breast slate-gray; belly and side
tail-feathers white; beak pinkish-white.

A Citizen of North America, nesting in the northern tier of States and
northward, and also on high mountains as far south as Georgia.

A Tree Trapper, Seed Sower, and Weed Warrior, according to season.

THE SONG SPARROW

(EVERY ONE'S DARLING)

"This Sparrow, who guides you to his name by the dark spot on the breast
as clearly as the Peabody-bird does by his white cravat, is every one's
bird and every one's darling," said the Doctor, as if he were speaking
of a dear friend.

"When you have learned his many songs, his pretty sociable ways, and
have seen his cheerfulness and patience in hard times, you will, I
know, agree with me that all possible good bird qualities are packed
into this little streaked Sparrow.

[Illustration: Song Sparrow.]

"Constancy is his first good point. If we live in southern New England
or westward to Illinois, we shall probably have him with us all the
year, wearing the same colored feathers after the moult as before, not
shedding his sweet temper and song with his spring coat. Now there are a
great many birds, as you will see, that wear full-dress suits and sing
wonderful songs in spring and early summer, while the weather is warm,
food plentiful, and everything full of promise; but whose music and
color vanish from the garden and roadside when frost comes. Yet the Song
Sparrow sings throughout the ye