PASSER DOMESTICUS. 395 



I ran so quickly where the grey cat led, 

 I found the little bird, alas ! but dead ; 

 Tied with the knot of studied cruelty, 

 And far more cruel, for the wings being free. 



But curses on the heartless human hound 

 Who ties and forces sparrows to the ground ! 

 May he be tied down with a priestly spell ; 

 His conscience be a canker — mind a hell ! 



As a rule the sexes keep separate during winter. I have noted 

 half a dozen cocks alighting on the street feeding. Sometimes 

 a hen would alight for a few seconds, then abruptly fly off by 

 herself ; but they make up for this in spring and summer by 

 having several broods in the year. Like many birds, they 

 carry away the droppings of the young. I have watched them 

 fly into their nest with food, then fly out with the droppings, 

 thus using their bills for very different purposes. Sparrows 

 both pulverise and bathe — that is, clean their feathers with dust 

 as well as water. On July 29th, 1893, at noon, on my way to 

 Abbey Park, I saw six amongst the dust, like hens, fluttering 

 and rubbing the dust in to their feathers ; on arriving at the 

 Kinness Burn I counted thirty -five bathing and splashing in the 

 burn. White of Selborne justly says — 



" Might not Mahomet and his followers take one method of purification 

 from these pulveratrices ? Because if a strict Mussulman is journeying in 

 a sandy desert where no water is to be found, at stated hours he strips off 

 his clothes and most scrupulously rubs his body over with sand or dust." 



No doubt, like the sparrows, cleansing their feathers, and ridding 

 themselves of parasites at the same time. He is an able fellow 

 the sparrow ; once in the world, like weeds and vice, will defy 

 man or virtue to put them out — in spite of sparrow-hail and 

 sixpence per dozen heads paid by farmers for trying to do so. 

 I knew of a common duck which daily killed from four to six 

 sparrows. It seized them with its bill, and shook them as a dog 

 a rat, then threw them over its head. Yet it did not get 

 sixpence per dozen. 



Longfellow, the American poet, says — 



" The sparrows chirped, as if they still were proud 

 Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be." 



John Watson in his book on " Sylvan Folk," says — 



"Autocrat of the tiles, and lord of the thatch, the sparrow, in his long 

 intercourse with man, lias developed the largest brain in birddom. For 

 reckless audacity and presumptive impudence the British sparrow has only 

 one compeer — the British boy. Thoroughly cosmopolitan, the sparrow is a 

 democrat among birds. He follows man and his attendant weeds to the utter- 

 most parts of the earth, and at any portion of the habitable globe, within ten 



