enny chattered on as she hunted for some more material for her nest. "I
suppose you've noticed," said she, "that he and his wife dress very much
alike. They don't go in for bright colors any more than we Wrens do.
They show good taste. I like the little brown caps they wear, and the
way their breasts and sides are streaked with brown. Then, too, they are
such useful folks. It is a pity that that nuisance of a Bully doesn't
learn something from them. I suppose they stay rather later than we do
in the fall."

"Yes," replied Peter. "They don't go until Jack Frost makes them. I
don't know of any one that we miss more than we do them."

"Speaking of the sparrow family, did you see anything of Whitethroat?"
asked Jenny Wren, as she rested for a moment in the doorway of her new
house and looked down at Peter Rabbit.

Peter's face brightened. "I should say I did!" he exclaimed. "He stopped
for a few days on his way north. I only wish he would stay here all the
time. But he seems to think there is no place like the Great Woods
of the North. I could listen all day to his song. Do you know what he
always seems to be saying?"

"What?" demanded Jenny.

"I live happ-i-ly, happ-i-ly, happ-i-ly," replied Peter. "I guess he
must too, because he makes other people so happy."

Jenny nodded in her usual emphatic way. "I don't know him as well as I
do some of the others," said she, "but when I have seen him down in
the South he always has appeared to me to be a perfect gentleman. He is
social, too; he likes to travel with others."

"I've noticed that," said Peter. "He almost always has company when he
passes through here. Some of those Sparrows are so much alike that it
is hard for me to tell them apart, but I can always tell Whitethroat
because he is one of the largest of the tribe and has such a lovely
white throat. He really is handsome with his black and white cap and
that bright yellow spot before each eye. I am told that he is very
dearly loved up in the north where he makes his home. They say he sings
all the time."

"I suppose Scratcher the Fox Sparrow has been along too," said Jenny.
"He also started sometime before we did."

"Yes," replied Peter. "He spent one night in the dear Old Briar-patch.
He is fine looking too, the biggest of all the Sparrow tribe, and HOW he
can sing. The only thing I've got against him is the color of his
coat. It always reminds me of Reddy Fox, and I don't like anything that
reminds me of that