They are trim, sprightly, sleek, and even natty; their dispositions are genial and vivacious, not quarrelsome, like their sparrow cousins, and what is perhaps best about them, they are birds we may surely depend upon seeing in the winter months. A few come forth in September, migrating at night from the deep woods of the north, where they have nested and moulted during the summer; but not until frost has sharpened the air are large numbers of them seen. Rejoicing in winter, they nevertheless do not revel in the deep and fierce arctic blasts, as the snowflakes do, but take good care to avoid the open pastures before the hard storms overtake them.

Early in the spring their song is sometimes heard before they leave us to woo and to nest in the north. Mr. Bicknell describes it as "a crisp call-note, a simple trill, and a faint, whispered warble, usually much broken, but not without sweetness."
End of Chapter