clipped their beaks into the molasses that had now no sprinkHng of crumbs, and 

 seemed surprised at its lack of shape. It tasted good, and yet they couldn't pick 

 it up like crumbs. Then they took to leaving the tip of the bill in the edge of it 

 and swallowing like any person of sense. When they were done they flew away 

 with the molasses dripping from their faces and beaks in a laughable style, return- 

 ing almost immediately with more birds. 



The fact is, a sparrow is a boy when it comes to eating. Were it not for 

 its good appetite, it couldn't put up with "just anything." Sparrows love the 

 tow^ns and cities because they find crumbs there. Our friend the baker knows 

 them, and many a . meal do they find ready si)read at his back door. So does 

 IVidget the cook, and even Lung W^o, if their hearts happen to have a soft place 

 for the birds. As for the boy around the corner, who walks about on crutches, 

 he knows all about the sparrows' preferences. In fact, sparrows seem to have 

 a special liking for boys on crutches. One little fellow^ we knew used to lay his 

 crutch down fiat on the ground and place food up and down on it when the 

 sparrows were hungry in the morning, /vnd the crutch came to be the "family 

 board," around which the birds gathered, be the crutch laid flat or tilted aslant 

 on the doorstej). In this way Johnny of the crippled foot came to have a good 

 understanding with the birds, and many a f[uiet hour was spent in their company, 

 johnny may turn out to be a great ornithologist .some day, all on account of his 

 crutch. What will it matter that he may never shoulder a gun and wander off 

 to the woods to shoot "specimens"? His knowledge of bird ways will serve a 

 better purpose than a possible gun. Tt w^as Johnny who first told us to notice, 

 how a sparrow straddles his little stick legs far apart when he walks, spreading 

 his toes in a comical w^ay. 



Eastern and Western song-sparrows ditfer, and so do individual birds every- 

 where — not only in their songs, but in the distribution of specks and stripes on 

 their clothes. What we have said about our song-sparrows may not wholly apply 

 to the family elsewhere. These differences lead bird-lovers to study each of the 

 birds about his own door ;ind forests without placing too much credit upon what 

 others say. 



Tliere is much of the year when sparrows live almost solely on seeds, iind 

 this is the time when they join hands with the farmer, so to speak, and help him 

 with the thi.stles and other weeds, by work at the seed tufts and pods. Sparrows 

 love to run in and out of holes and cr.-icks and between cornstalks and dry wood- 

 piles. 



It was a ])rettv idea and a charilablc one. that of the poet's. In a country 

 where roofs are shingled with thatch, or dry sticks and leaves overlaj^ping. the 

 si)arrows are familiar residents; and where somebody remembers to "pull out the 

 thatch" or make a loose little corner on purpose, they <leei) all night. \\\- have 

 ourselves made many a i)ile of bru^h on pnr|x)>^e tor the s])arrows. 



The white-crowned sparrow^ w inter with us, going far up the Alaskan coast 

 to ncsi in the spring, as do also the tree-snarrow. the golden-crowned, savanna. 



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