72 BOMBAY DUCKS 



farthing?' and in Aristophanes even seven are offered 

 for an obole. His dirty colour, his brown jacket, his 

 reddish-brown head and sooty cheeks, his dumpy figure, 

 his bustly flight, gait, voice, demeanour — in short, all 

 betray his low birth and vulgar mind. 



" But the Pariah avenges himself on the society which 

 has expelled him by his truly cynical shameless- 

 ness. . . . The sparrow is an Atheos, a wild Communist, 

 but shrewd, active, and untiring. . . . When the bold 

 vagabond has fixed himself anywhere neither force nor 

 cunning is able to turn him out. Not in vain has he 

 associated with men, and learned from them craft and 

 wickedness. It is not easy to scare this paragon of 

 audacity, or to inspire him with respect. He is more 

 than a sceptic ; he is a decided freethinker. In pre- 

 sumptuous security, he seats himself on the nose or arm 

 of the fluttering, clappering ghost, to whom the charge 

 of the garden is committed. In its very shadow he 

 bids it defiance, and thus, it may be said, enjoys the 

 fruit of his wickedness with a heightened consciousness 

 of his transgression. If he has happily escaped from a 

 net or a pea-shooter, he makes a tremendous outcry ; 

 jeers at and abuses the awkward fowler from his hiding- 

 place, and anon the whole scoundrelly fraternity chime 

 in with all the power of their lungs." 



This was, of course, written of the sparrow as he is 

 found in Europe. The Indian bird, although he belongs 

 to the same species — Passer domesticus — can give his 

 Western cousin points in the matter of evil-doing. 

 " London sparrows," writes Lockwood Kipling, " are 

 said to be familiar, but when compared with their 



