THE SPARROW. 49 



sparrow requires for the exhibition of his aboriginal clothing, he 

 appears in a true quaker garb, of chestnut, ash, and black, trim in 

 clothing, pert in manner, positively pretty, yet still quakerish. But he 

 belies his looks; for he is a thief, a pugilist, and an everlasting 

 gossip. He is everything by turns, and adapts himself to every new 

 condition and circumstance without the least regard to that motto of 

 Emerson's which requires us to " walk upright and vital," and to 

 maintain our integrity under all trials. He will eat the daintiest 

 food ; and if that is not at hand, wiU forage on any dustheap, and eat 

 the veriest garbage. Even in feeding he is a paradox ; for if the 

 supply be scant, he searches keenly, and is content with what he 

 finds himself ; but the moment he lights in a land of plenty — as, for 

 instance, a stone-pavement covered with crumbs, or a granary with a 

 hole in the roof — he immediately abandons the good habit of foraging 

 on his own account, and filches from his neighbour. He has great 

 faith in the sweet flavour of forbidden food, and eats that which he 

 has stolen with indescribable relish. 



But it is as a member of a community that the sparrow appears in 

 his true light. He is a sociable fellow and loves company. Nothing 

 more delights him than to meet a score of his companions on the top 

 of a pear-tree within view of a kitchen ** whence smells arise" along 

 with pieces, and there to beguile the afternoon with small conversation, 

 and the first lines of songs which none of them can sing through, 

 with occasional sallies after food, and then a fight or two, and a gossip, 

 as before. At roosting-time he has compunctions ; and for fear he 

 should die in the night — cut off by a black cat even in the act of 

 digesting the stolen provender — he turns religious, and mumbles a 

 few disjointed prayers, with his head leaning on an ivy leaf, and 

 after another incoherent gossip dozes off, in a state of plethoric 

 sobriety. 



The sparrow is precocious. He enters the world " on his own 

 hands" or claws, at six weeks old ; he quarrels with his parents, and 

 attempts to kick them out of the nest a day or two afterwards, and 

 goes on all sorts of voyages and travels, and gets steeped in crime 

 within two months of being fledged. When nine months old, he 

 marries and sets up a domestic establishment, and during courtship, 

 and the first of the honeymoon, keeps the neighbourhood in constant 

 alarm with his repeated quarrels and sanguinary fights. He is great 

 in war, particularly that ignoble warfare which may be best likened 



