76 BOMBAY DUCKS 



by all means let it do so. That is not the site I should 

 have selected for a habitation, were I a bird, but that is 

 neither here nor there ; if the dirty, dark hole meets 

 with the approval of the sparrow, let it bring up its 

 family in it. It is only when the parents insult me 

 every time they enter or leave the nest, that I begin to 

 grow angry with the birds. 



I naturally ask what I have done that they should 

 wake me every morning before sunrise, and, in the 

 course of the day, hurl at me all the swear-words they 

 know. 



All sparrows behave thus, but, just as the Madras 

 crow is more impudent than any other crow, so does the 

 insolence of the Madras sparrow exceed the insolence of 

 every other sparrow, not excepting the London bird. 

 1 am not exaggerating when I say that the sparrows 

 once evicted me from an hotel, I will not name the 

 hostel, for I do not consider that it deserves an adver- 

 tisement. It must suffice that the roof of the rooms 

 occupied by me had in its structure a number of iron 

 rafters provided with ledges. Upon these the sparrows 

 held shouting matches. 



And "what a dissonance is the sparrow's tone ! Of all 

 the Babel confusion of bird tongues, there are few more 

 displeasing than this. All the boorish vulgarity of his 

 nature is expressed in that tone ! " 



Well, I had to listen the whole day, not to one spar- 

 row, but to a large colony, and, judging by the uproar, 

 envy, hatred, malice, falsehood, deceit, and jealousy 

 reigned in that colony. I was awakened in the morn- 

 ing — my first in Madras — to find that the crows had 



