THE SONG SPARROW
By the road in early spring
Always hopefully you sing;
It may rain or it may snow,
Sun may shine or wind may blow,
Still your dainty strain we hear—
“Cheer—Cheer—
Never, never fear,
May will soon be here.”
Darling little prophet that you are!
When at last the leaves are out
And wild flowers all about,
Songs of other birds are fraught
With the spirit that you taught.
Still you sing on, sweet and clear—
“Hear—Hear—
Happy, happy cheer,
Singing all the year.”
Jocund little brother of the air.
—Lynn Tew Sprague.
“Many birds that inhabit parts of the country having different climates vary thus in colour. In the hot, dry desert regions the bird will be found smaller and paler; in the cool, well-watered North, larger and of deeper hue.
“Bob-white comes under this law, and our birds in New England are larger and of more brilliant hue than their southern brothers.
“Now is a chance for you to look at the map. The Song Sparrow as we know him lives east of the Rockies. Start at the extreme northern portion of Alaska. Here is found the largest of the race, the Aleutian Song Sparrow. Next come down to the coast of British Columbia and Southern Alaska, where the rainfall is one hundred and twenty-five inches in a year, and you see the home of the Sooty Song Sparrow, the darkest in colour of all.
“If you then travel farther to the desert regions of Nevada and Arizona, where the rainfall is only six inches, you will find the palest of all, the Desert Song Sparrow; and, finally, on the border between Mexico and Central America, lives the Mexican Song Sparrow, the smallest of the tribe.[[4]]
“So, wherever we wander our country over, we find this bird to be a reminder of home, which, after all, is the best thing that can happen to us, wherever we go or whatever we see; for the proof that journeys are healthful for body and mind lies in the joy with which, like the bird wanderers, we turn homeward at the end.
“You children may not think of this now. You may think, possibly, that home is dull and full of work, that the birds and flowers of other places are better. Wait a few years and see. Wait until you have been so far away that you could not get home, or have been filled with dread that a day was near when there would be no home there. Then return, and stand under the sky at evening, and listen to the voice of the Song Sparrow down in the alders, and you will not only know that God is very near, but that He is very good, and a part of your home itself.