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A good way to discourage sparrows is to shoot them en masse when they are feeding on road refuse, such as the white-throated, white-crowned and other sparrows never touch. Persistent destruction of their nests will check the nuisance. THE SHORE BIRDS. Who is there who thinks of the shore-birds as being directly beneficial to man by reason of their food habits?
Out of that dark green sea of crowding forest this high-standing spur rose steeply. It ran back on either side, apparently, to the far-off white-crowned peaks in the distance, themselves probably inaccessible. "Let's make the first trip geographical," I suggested. "Spy out the land, and drop back here for more gasoline. With your tremendous speed we can reach that range and back all right.
Then I crossed more planted fields, climbing more barbed-wire fences, and stopping on the way to enjoy the sweetly quaint music of a little chorus of white-crowned sparrows, and skirted once more the muddy shore of the cane-swamp, where the yellowlegs and sandpipers were still feeding. Once back at the hotel, I opened my Coues's Key to refresh my memory as to the exact appearance of that bird.
The little Ring Plover rearing its delicate and tender young, the Eider Duck swimming man-of-war-like amid her floating brood, like the guardship of a most valuable convoy; the White-crowned Bunting's sonorous note reaching the ear ever and anon; the crowds of sea birds in search of places wherein to repose or to feed how beautiful is all this in this wonderful rocky desert at this season, the beginning of July, compared with the horrid blasts of winter which here predominate by the will of God, when every rock is rendered smooth with snows so deep that every step the traveller takes is as if entering into his grave; for even should he escape an avalanche, his eye dreads to search the horizon, for full well he knows that snow snow is all that can be seen.
He leaned his white-crowned head against the high chair-back, and while he waited for Manuel's decision he gazed calmly at the border of red tiles which showed at the low eaves of the porch calmly as to features only, for his eyes held the blaze of anger. "Señors, I go." The brim of Manuel's sombrero flicked the dust of the patio.
In March the white-throated and white-crowned sparrows may be seen, hopping about on the flower-beds or peering slyly from the evergreens. The robin hops about freely upon the grass, notwithstanding the keepers large-lettered warning, and at intervals, and especially at sunset, carols from the treetops his loud, hearty strain.
"So much gold makes it seem like the Heavenly City," Edith said softly. To the north lay the white-crowned Alps, to the east the blue Adriatic; and Edith never forgot the glory of that hour. A fisher's boat swung slowly through the Lido port, and moved toward its mooring-place at a group of rose-tinged piles. In just such a boat Columbus must have sailed when he was a boy.
Then the white-crowned sparrows, Gambel's sparrow, the tree sparrow, and one or two other sparrows of which I am not sure are next in number. Two species of birds from the Far North are usually represented by a solitary specimen of each, namely, the Alaska hermit thrush and the American pipit, or titlark. The thrush is silent, but has its usual trim, alert look.
"But I do not permit it; nor do I seek counsel from the children I have tossed on my foot to the tune of a nursery rhyme." He shook his white-crowned head reprovingly. "He was always screaming at his duenna, one child that I recollect," he smiled. "Art thou scolding José again, my Andres?
In the meadows and low, wet lands the savanna sparrow is met with, and may be known by its fine, insect-like song; in the swamp, the swamp sparrow. The fox sparrow, the largest and handsomest species of this family, comes to us in the fall, from the North, where it breeds. Likewise the tree or Canada sparrow, and the white-crowned and white-throated sparrow.
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