arranging amusements for every day. Grandaddy long legs danced several jigs. The crickets and the grasshoppers got up a baseball game. When the baby show came off, Mrs. Quail took the prize for the prettiest baby under a year. Mother Pig who had heard of it and had broken out of Farmer Goodman’s pasture in order to bring the plumpest of her litter, carried back the prize for the fattest baby. Mrs. English Sparrow reported the largest number of broods raised. The locusts and the katydids took part in a cake walk.

A great fat young grasshopper and a young robin entered a hopping race. As they came out even there was trouble and prospects of hard feelings. Three butterflies who were acting as judges decided to award the prize to the grasshopper because he was smaller. This decision did not suit the robin. In a fit of impatience he ended the matter by swallowing the grasshopper—legs and all.

During the moonshiny nights Mr. Man-in-the-Moon took great pains to furnish excellent light. On other nights the fireflies showed their brightest lanterns.

Sometimes at night, white-robed Jack Frost would come and play kissing games with the leaves who would then get happier, more radiant faces. But he would box and wrestle with the nuts until their shells would crack open. Then when they came to play tag or puss-wants-a-corner with the leaves, as the little West Wind brothers frequently did, they, in their rough sport, would knock the nuts out of their cosy shells upon the ground, so that the children could pick them up. Merry times were these!

In this way the sports were carried on for thirty-one days and nights. By that time everyone, even Miss October herself, was tired out. The fine dresses of the trees being the worse for wear, dropped, leaf by leaf, and some of the trees were left nearly naked. The grasshoppers, butterflies and caterpillars who could no longer keep their eyes open had dropped into their winter’s sleep.

Except the meadow-larks, red winged blackbirds, robins, blue jays, bluebirds and a few others the feathered tribes had been obliged to leave. Some fox sparrows on their way to the south had stopped for a few days; but they said that they could not stay until the festivities were over.

Finally her mother, Mrs. Year, telegraphed to Miss October, who did not know when her welcome was worn out, bidding her to make her adieux and start home instantly. Being exhausted from sleepless days and nights she was glad to leave.

After her departure, in the timber everything became quiet and still, but the trees hoped that sometime in the future they might have another picnic as delightful and jolly, and all felt satisfied and voted the reception a perfect success.

Loveday Almira Nelson.

THE TREE SPARROW.
(Spizella monticola.)

“I like to see them feasting on the seed stalks above the crust, and hear their chorus of merry tinkling notes, like sparkling frost crystals turned to music.” —Chapman.

One who loves birds cannot fail to be attracted by the sparrows and especially by the Tree Sparrow, whose pert form is the subject of our picture. This little bird comes to us in the Eastern United States in September or October and remains throughout the winter. It is at this time common or even abundant as far to the westward as the great plains, and is rare farther west. It is a winter bird and breeds in the colder latitudes north of the United States, where it builds its home of grasses, shreds of bark and small roots interlaced with hair, not high up in trees, as its name might indicate, but upon or near the ground.

Gentle and of a retiring disposition, they prefer the cultivated fields, the meadows, the woods with their borders of shrubs or the trees of the orchard. Such is their confidence, however, that they will even visit the dooryards and prettily pick up the scattered crumbs or grain.

While tramping through a meadow in the early winter and before the snow has disappeared or the frost has hardened and changed the surface of the earth, the tramper may frequently disturb numbers of the sparrows. Flying from the dried grass they will seem to come out of the ground. Speaking of such an incident, Mr. Keyser says: “This unexpected behavior led me to investigate, and I soon found that in many places there were cozy apartments hollowed out under the long thick tufts of grass, with neat entrances at one side like the door of an Eskimo hut. These hollows gave ample evidence of having been occupied by the birds, so there could be no doubt about their being bird bed-rooms.”

These little birds seem almost a part of one’s animal family, and a companion in those regions where the snow covers the ground a part of the year. They chirp and often sing quite gaily in the spring. They may often be seen when the thermometer indicates a temperature below zero and the snow is a foot or more in depth. Seemingly all that is required to satisfy them is a plenty of weeds from which they may gather the seeds. They are driven southerly only by a lack of a suitable food supply. Often they may be found resting under clumps of tall grass or vines on which the snow has gathered, forming a sort of roof over the snug retreat. “Whether rendered careless by the cold or through a natural heedlessness, they are very tame at such times; they sit unconcernedly on the twigs, it may be but a few feet distant, chirping cheerfully, with the plumage all loosened and puffy, making very pretty roly-poly looking objects.”

A very pretty sight, and one that may frequently be seen, is a flock of Tree Sparrows around some tall weed. Some of the birds will be actively gathering seeds from the branches of the weed, while others will stand upon the ground or snow and pick up those seeds that are dropped or shaken off by their relatives above. While thus feeding there seems to be a constant conversation. If we could but translate this sweet-voiced chirping perhaps we should find that they are expressing to each other the pleasure that the repast is giving them.

TREE SPARROW.
(Spizella monticola).
About Life-size.
FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.

Their song is sweet and pleasing. They are not constant songsters, but seem to be moved by some unseen spirit, for a flock will suddenly burst out in a melody of song that is entrancing. He who has been favored with such a concert is indeed fortunate. Their whole being seems to be brought into action in the production of this song, which is “somewhat crude and labored in technique, but the tones are very sweet indeed, not soft and low but quite loud and clear. Quite often the song opens with one or two long syllables and ends with a merry little trill having a delightfully human intonation. There is, indeed, something innocent and child-like about the voices of these sparrows.”

The Tree Sparrow is often called the Winter Chippy and is confounded with the chipping sparrow, which it resembles. It is a larger bird and carries a mark of identification by which it may be easily known. There is on the grayish white breast a small black spot. Moreover, the Tree Sparrow arrives in its winter range about the time that the chippy retires to the Gulf States and Mexico.

THE SPARROWS’ BEDTIME.