BIRD TRAITS. 217 



easy to go on and compare the humming-bird to 

 a French dancing-master, the whippoorwill to an 

 auctioneer, the bittern and heron to a patient 

 angler, the woodcock with his bill in the mud to 

 a tippler with his straw in the cider, the bobo- 

 link with his interminable and over-cheerful talk 

 to a book agent or drummer. But these minor 

 resemblances are less real and more whimsical. 

 The ocean has really modified the character of 

 the gulls and grebes, as it has the men and women 

 who live upon it or near it. Life in the open 

 field, pasture, and ploughed land has had a cer- 

 tain clear and distinct influence upon the spar- 

 rows and finches, just as it has had upon those 

 who drive the harrow or sow the seed. But per- 

 haps the clearest example of all of the influence 

 of environment is afforded by the English spar- 

 row, a bird which it is hardly necessary to say I 

 did not have in mind when I wrote of his Ameri- 

 can relatives. City-bred man without knowledge 

 of lake and forest, mountain and ocean, is an 

 inferior product of the race ; but disagreeable as 

 he is, the city-bred bird is worse. The English 

 sparrow stands to me as the feathered embodi- 

 ment of those instincts and passions which be- 

 long to the lowest class of foreign immigrants. 

 The Chicago anarchist, the New York rough, 

 the Boston pugihst can all be identified in his 

 turbulent and dirty society. He is a bird of the 



