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The White-Breasted Sparrow is rare in Concord; but the Ashburnham woods, thirty miles away, are full of it. The Scarlet Tanager's is the commonest note in Concord, except the Red-Eyed Flycatcher's; yet one of the best field-ornithologists in Boston had never heard it.
The "pito" is a small, brown, speckled bird, with yellow belly, and there were great numbers of them flying about. But the bird which most fixed the attention of Leon was a little bird about the size of a starling. Its plumage was rather pretty. It was brown, with black stripes on the back, and white-breasted. But it was not the plumage of the bird that interested Leon.
I went towards him, and saw a white-breasted cat sitting stretched under the laurels, with front paws doubled under him, which I took to be Toffy asleep. I scolded Prin for disturbing Toffy, and he stopped barking, but remained on the spot whilst I continued my walk.
At another time I saw one of these tiny beauties making his morning toilet in a very pretty fashion, leaning forward, and brushing first one cheek and then the other against the wet rose leaf on which he was perched. The only swallows on my list are the barn swallows and the white-breasted.
Brewster had made the observations cited in my previous article. He replied with great kindness, and upon the point in question said: "I watched the nest two or three times a day, from a time before the young were hatched till they departed; and now you mention it, it occurs to me that I never did see the male, but only the white-breasted female."
Before him were two brindled white-breasted greyhounds with collars of rubies round their necks, and the one that was on the left side bounded across to the right side, and the one on the right to the left, and like two sea-swallows sported round him. And his horse cast up four sods with his four hoofs, like four swallows in the air about his head, now above, now below.
"Isn't that a Nuthatch now?" asked Nat. "There hanging to the end tassel of the big spruce; and a lot more above do come and look, Olive." "No, Nattie, they are the Chickadees that father said, a moment ago, you might mistake for Nuthatches." "Chickadee-dee-dee!" said a bird, looking at the children with one eye. The White-breasted Nuthatch Length about six inches. Upper parts grayish-blue.
In my immediate vicinity, the Chimney-Swallow is not now common, nor the Sand-Swallow; but the Cliff-Swallow, that strange emigrant from the Far West, the Barn-Swallow, and the white-breasted species, are abundant, together with the Purple Martin.
Here he perched himself with a sigh of satisfaction, and watched for a time the great white-breasted gulls which floated down to gaze with curious watchful eyes at the intruder upon their wild domain.
Blue Jay, 1; White-breasted Nuthatch, 1; Chickadee, 6; Golden-crowned Kinglet, 2. Total, 4 species, 10 individuals. Birds seem unusually scarce this winter. GEORGE L. PLIMPTON and EDWARD H. PERKINS. Bridgewater, Mass. Dec. 25; 8 to 10 A. M. Cloudy; ground bare; wind southeast, moderate; temperature 27 degrees to 42 degrees.
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