THE ROOSTING OF THE SPARROWS 201 



touches the branches. There are twenty or thirty spar- 

 rows roosting within fifteen inches of you. You cannot 

 see any of them, but if you were to stretch forth your 

 hand you could as likely as not catch hold of one. You 

 disturb a branch and there is a rustling of a dozen pairs 

 of wings, so close to you that your face is fanned by the 

 wind they cause. You have disturbed some birds, but 

 they are so sleepy that they move without uttering a 

 twitter. You leave the bush and return an hour later. 

 Perfect silence reigns. You may now go right up to the 

 roosting hedge and talk without disturbing any of the 

 three thousand birds. You may even strike a match 

 without arousing one, so soundly do they sleep. 



Those who wish to rid a locality of a superabundance 

 of sparrows might well profit by the fact that the birds 

 sleep so soundly in companies. Could anything be 

 easier than to throw a large net over such a hedge and 

 thus secure, at one fell blow, the whole colony ? 



