quite as full and perfect as when heard
in June or July in the Canadian woods. The latter bird is much more
numerous than the white-crowned, and its stay with us more protracted,
which may in a measure account for the greater frequency of its song.
The fox sparrow, who passes earlier (sometimes in March), is also
chary of the music with which he is so richly endowed. It is not every
season that I hear him, though my ear is on the alert for his strong,
finely-modulated whistle.

Nearly all the warblers sing in passing. I hear them in the orchards,
in the groves, in the woods, as they pause to feed in their northward
journey, their brief, lisping, shuffling, insect-like notes requiring
to be searched for by the ear, as their forms by the eye. But the ear
is not tasked to identify the songs of the kinglets, as they tarry
briefly with us in spring. In fact, there is generally a week in April
or early May,--

"On such a time as goes before the leaf,
When all the woods stand in a mist of green
And nothing perfect,"--

during which the piping, voluble, rapid, intricate, and delicious
warble of the ruby-crowned kinglet is the most noticeable strain to be
heard, especially among the evergreens.

I notice that during the mating season of the birds the rivalries and
jealousies are not all confined to the males. Indeed, the most
spiteful and furious battles, as among the domestic fowls, are
frequently between females. I have seen two hen robins scratch and
pull feathers in a manner that contrasted strongly with the courtly
and dignified sparring usual between the males. One March a pair of
bluebirds decided to set up housekeeping in the trunk of an old
apple-tree near my house. Not long after, an unwedded female appeared,
and probably tried to supplant the lawful wife. I did not see what
arts she used, but I saw her being very roughly handled by the jealous
bride. The battle continued nearly all day about the orchard and
grounds, and was a battle at very close quarters. The two birds would
clinch in the air or on a tree, and fall to the ground with beaks and
claws locked. The male followed them about, and warbled and called,
but whether deprecatingly or encouragingly, I could not tell.
Occasionally he would take a hand, but whether to separate them or
whether to fan the flames, that I could not tell. So far as I could
see, he was highly amused, and culpably indifferent to the issue of
the battle.

The English spring b