ANECDOTE OF A SPARROW. CI 



LETTER VIII. 



FROM EMILY TO CAROLINE. 



MY DEAREST GIRL, 



I ADMIRE your friendly linnets, and think 

 they should have been named Damon and Pythias, 

 after the celebrated friends of ancient story. They 

 prove, at least, that birds have affection, if they have 

 not reason. But I can assure you that they are ca- 

 pable of attachment, not only to their own species, 

 but also to those who feed them, and to the place 

 where they have been sheltered and nourished. 



We are apt to consider sparrows as stupid, and re- 

 gard them with an unfavourable eye because they eat 

 a little of our corn ; but a friend of my mother's re- 

 lated an instance of the sagacity of one she had brought 

 up tame from the nest, that really astonishes me ; 

 yet, as she is a person of strict veracity, you may be- 

 lieve it to have happened exactly as she told it.* 



This lady lived at Fulham at that time ; and when 

 she went, for the winter, to her house in London, 

 which was situated near the Thames, she conveyed 



* This anecdote is related on the authority of JMrs. Powell of 

 Tottenham. 



