124 



THE GUIDE T< i NATURE 



I had read in man) of the bird 

 books thai the song sparrow was so 

 ver) shy that he was a difficull bird 

 i, i gel near to; so of course I was 

 delighted to find them so friendly; and 

 now to have one visit the windows in 

 almost mid-winter is a satisfaction 

 indeed. 



I have never seen a song sparrow 

 quarrel with any other bird; no mat- 

 ter of what species; so the following 

 may seem almost incredible, yet is 

 absolutely true:— In the beginning of 

 my friendship with the birds I had no 

 end of trouble with English sparrows, 

 for of course they discovered the food 

 at once and it took great perseverance 

 to get rid of them, as at first, when I 

 frightened them away the other bircls 

 flew too. So I had to contrive various 

 ways of hiding myself from the birds I 

 wanted, but in full view of the intru- 

 ders at whom I made gestures as fear- 

 inspiring as I could invent. In time, 

 C would you believe it) the chippies and 

 song sparrows soon came to under- 

 stand that my "shooing" was not 

 intended for them, and what is more, 

 they became my allies and themselves 

 often took a hand in ousting the enemy, 

 then would return and proceed with 

 their interrupted meal. 



All this was wonderful enough to 

 me, but something even more so 

 occurred on Sunday, and which makes 

 me think my little winter visitor must 

 be an old friend. 



You must know that it is nearly 

 three years since I and the song spar- 

 rows finally succeeded in stopping the 

 English sparrows coming to my bird's 

 restaurant : also that until the other 

 day I had not seen a song sparrow 

 since late last October. 



Last Sunday when I returned from 

 a walk, I was pleased to see my little 

 friend feeding on the window box; but 

 I was annoyed to hear a noisy English 

 sparrow evidently close by. Yes, there 

 he was, on the shelf, so hear the win- 

 dow that the frame work had hidden 

 him. Here was a dilemna ! How to 

 get rid of him without losing my new 

 friend ! I felt certain that to approach 

 within plain sight at all would send 

 off the song sparrow, and was most 



agreeably surprised that he stayed 

 while I slowly wormed my way close 

 to the wall and as hidden by the lace 

 curtain as was possible. 



Once there I managed to frighten 

 the uninvited rascal, but he dared to 

 wonder if he dared to stay. I was then 

 in no mood to be the one to give in and 

 started to show him who was "boss," 

 when, to my horror, I realized that my 

 hand was in plain sight of the other 

 bird. He started to fly and I lost all 

 hope ; but, bless him ! he flew at the 

 English sparrow sending him off in 

 such a way that I wanted to shake 

 hands with my little partner. 



I have never been one of those 

 whose love for animals leads to attrib- 

 uting to them all sorts of human pow- 

 ers ; but if ever there was a case that 

 looked as if the animal possessed rea- 

 soning power, surely this was one. 

 Before I entered the room both birds 

 were feeding, apparently without 

 noticing each other ; and not until I 

 showed a desire to drive one away did 

 the other object to him. What is one 

 to think? It certainly looked as if the 

 song sparrow were an old friend who 

 remembered our former troubles with 

 this pest of Bird-dom. I might even 

 be tempted to tell you that it was plain 

 to be seen that Mr. Song Sparrow 

 noticing my difficulty with a rowdy 

 robber, said, "What impudence ! my 

 dear old friend, I never dreamed that 

 the fellow would dare to defy you, or 

 I would have sent him about his busi- 

 ness before?" 



I must not omit to add that having 

 driven off the un-wanted one, my vis- 

 itor returned to his interrupted repast 

 as if nothing had disturbed it. 



One day in early March, three or 

 four years ago, during a snow storm 

 that would have been called a bliz- 

 zard had the temperature been lower, 

 five or six song sparrows fed at my 

 window nearly all the afternoon. I 

 was within less than three feet of them 

 and it was a pretty sight : the snow 

 was falling so fast that they had to 

 scratch for every seed, which they did 

 with both feet at once. One little fel- 

 low was polite enough to interrupt 

 his meal while he flew to the nearest 



