265 



HAUNTS OF THE TOWN SPARROW! 



BY C. J. S. 



I WOULD forgive my enemy the greatest wrong, were I but sure he 

 a Sparrow. I am so used to their gay, bustling company, as to look 

 upon them as part and parcel of my town existence; so accustomed to 

 their single note, and to hear the flutter of their wings, that I abjure the 

 fact that there are golden canaries singing at a hundred windows, and blithe 

 goldfinches pouring forth sweet melody; or that now and then a lark may 

 be seen far up, away amid the blue sky, that by some inadvertent means 

 has strayed from the vicinity of broad green meadows, and sweet hawthorn- 

 scented lanes, towards the great murky town. I forget these, knowing 

 they are strangers here, tarrying only on compulsion, while my little dusky 

 brown friend is a native, and a true cockney. 



The life of a Town Sparrow constitutes a biography in itself, so full 

 of incident is it. He is as different from the Pyrgita domestica of the 

 country, as is the pale artizan from the sunburnt ploughboy. Their daily 

 lives and habits differ, as do the circumstances by which they are surrounded. 



Mr. Mudie, somewhat depreciating the interest attached to the Sparrow, 

 says that "it needs no description, being found at all times, and in all 

 places." True it is common enough; but how many things are there, 

 which are termed common and are ignorantly despised, common things of 

 life, which to the observer contain more poetry and real interest, than 

 many so-called rarities. It is because the Sparrow is common that we 

 love him ; he is bound up in our every-day existence, and like the robin, 

 has been one of the Lares of an English home. 



In the early morning, when the country bird is peeping from under 

 the waving leaves, or merrily saluting the labourer on the high-road, the 

 London Sparrow is up and doing, while the streets are yet comparatively 

 quiet; peeping in at garret windows, and with noisy chirp waking the 

 laggard sleepers, or, assembling with his companions to discuss a meal, 

 snatched from the breakfast assigned to the fowls of neighbouring stable- 

 yards. A few hours later in the day, when the streets grow bustling, I 

 notice that our friend grows very important and bustling too. In the broad 

 noonday, with the glaring sun shining fiercely down upon the whitened 

 streets, he will frisk about, stopping still upon the pavement until you 

 are close upon him, thinking of the recipe concerning certain salt being 

 placed upon the tail, and then with roguish demeanour he flies off to 

 his companions, or perchance to settle upon the bronze nose of some 

 giant statue of a warrior. 



He is busy, too, upon ^Change,' strutting and hopping about as if he 

 only possessed a true knowledge of the state of the corn-market, which he 



VOL. VI. 2 M 



