THE SPARROW 5.1TS VIRTUES. L7E 
ing so freely as a bird of flight would probably be 
suffocated before it could break through the walls 
of its prison; and, in the third, that the same story 
comes to us from several independent observers. 
One writer, the Rev. C. A. Johns, has doubted the 
possibility of such a proceeding on the part of the 
aggrieved martins on the ground that the act in 
question would imply a certain amount of reasoning 
power ; and no animal save man, he says, has been 
granted the gift of reason. ‘This last assertion, how- 
ever, cannot be upheld by any one who has ever 
studied the ways of animals; and with it, of course, 
the objection falls to the ground. 
Lastly, it may be fairly urged that, in driving 
away the martins, the sparrows are scarcely to 
blame, for, while they themselves remain with us 
throughout the year, their weaker rivals are summer 
visitors only, and so, for a time, are usurpers of a 
position which is scarcely theirs by right. They 
poach, in fact, upon the preserves of the sparrow ; 
and the sparrow very naturally resents their in- 
trusion. 
Supposing that, in an unreclaimed country, tenanted 
by a people who had there lived from time imme- 
morial, a body of strangers were to pay an annual 
and undesired visit extending over the best months 
of the year, to settle uninvited in the native villages, 
and to support themselves upon the game furnished 
by the neighbourhood. Would not the rightful in- 
habitants in such a case be fully justified in resorting 
to force in order to rid themselves of their un- 
