54 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



Arsenic, nux vomica, and baited traps, are offered him, and he takes 

 his choice and dies forthwith, to haunt the fields afterwards in a 

 ghostly shape, and revenge himself by watching the growth and multi- 

 plication of caterpillars — caterpillars which he, if living, would have 

 destroyed, but which, left to fatten on the farmer's crops, entail upon 

 him ten times the cost of a sparrow. Then there is the screech 

 owl, who now and then finds her way to the nest when both parents are 

 out, and gobbles up the callow brood, and if she could, would do a 

 siniilar office for the parents. But the windhover hawk is his most 

 deadly enemy. He dreads the high-flying mouser, and has no ap- 

 petite for growing corn when she is within sight. It is seldom that he 

 suffers in a positive way, for the windhover is mostly content with a 

 few mice and cockchafers, but the dread is instinctive ; he knows the 

 hawk-like swoop, and he cowers under cover without making the 

 necessary distinctions. As to scarecrows, he snaps his bill at such in 

 perfect contempt. He views them as demonstrations of eccentricity, 

 — matters for amusement rather than fear, — and after a careful survey 

 of a straw- stuffed man, with boots turned behind, and face without 

 expression, he deems it the relic of some gunpowder-plot freak, and 

 so far from being frightened, chooses it immediately as a suitable spot 

 for his nest. Old hats stuffed with red rag ; dead dogs and cats 

 crucified on broom sticks, and rows of gay ribbons threaded on sticks, 

 he holds in equal disregard, and if puzzled by them for a day or two, 

 pays no more attention to them after he has seen their emptiness ; 

 and as to boys with horns and clappers, he takes no alarm from their 

 hideous noises, but keeps at a safe distance in case of stones. Thus, 

 in every sense, the sparrow is very individual ; his ways and means 

 are interesting, though neither song nor plumage claim any particular 

 regard. He has character, and that redeems him from indifference. 

 Song and plumage are both poor things compared with character : it 

 is character we seek in men ; and strong individualities make even 

 rogues tolerable ; for, after all, Will, which is the foundation of indi- 

 viduality, compels reverence, no less in feathered than in coated 

 bipeds. 



