io6 BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 



impostors, and presuming upon the affectionate sentiments of 

 exiled Englishmen have become a veritable calamity, and 

 practically are officially branded as "vermin." In New York 

 and other cities, the townsfolk began by putting up nesting- 

 boxes for the birds to build in, in the public gardens and on 

 corners of buildings. But now, if they could, they would 

 introduce a pestilence among them and exterminate the race. 

 It is the same in Australia, and the man who "invented" the 

 sparrow stands in the monument of public infamy only one 

 niche lower than "the man who invented the rabbit." And 

 "pity 'tis 'tis so." For the sparrow is not an unamiable fowl. 

 The poet who blesses it "twittering forth its morning song, a 

 brief but sweet domestic melody," went perhaps too far, for if 

 there is one thing for which "the nightingale of our roofs" 

 deserves persecution, it is the exasperating monotony of its 

 soulless chirp, and thus it is that one feels inclined to echo all 

 Prior's abuse of it : 



" Begone ! with flagging wings sit down 

 On some old penthouse near the town ; 

 In brewers' stables peck thy grain, 

 Then wash it down with puddled rain ; 

 And hear thy dirty offspring squall 

 From bottles on a suburb wall." 



But in spite of its monstrous impudence, or partly, perhaps, 

 because of it, the sparrow is really a popular favourite. Of 

 course, no one takes it very seriously. When the cat is seen 



