^'jgosP 1 ] Townsend, Habits of the English Sparrow. 15 



several experimenters that the young English Sparrow separated 

 from his unmusical parents and associated with song birds, readily 

 acquires his foster parents' melody. A few such educated ones in 

 each city might prove to be missionaries in a good cause. Cer- 

 tainly we may hope for this in the millennium ! Until that time 

 we can look upon the present infliction of their 'song' as an oppor- 

 tunity to cultivate our philosophy, and to turn deaf ears to it, or to 

 seize with pleasure on the occasional musical notes welcoming the 

 spring. 



One of the most noticeable habits of the English Sparrow, is 

 the courting that goes shamelessly on under our very feet. The 

 strut of the male — and he is a handsomely marked bird but 

 woefully smoke begrimmed these soft coal days — is always amus- 

 ing. With flattened back, head held up and tail clown, wings out 

 from the body, the tips of the primaries touching or nearly touching 

 the ground, he hops back and forth before the coy female as if on 

 springs. Not one but several dance thus before a lady who barely 

 deigns to look at them, and then only to peck in feigned disgust at 

 the love-lorn suitors. These pecks are often far from love pats. 

 At times she stands in the middle of a ring of males at whom she 

 pecks viciously in turn as they fly by, all chirping excitedly at the 

 top of their lungs. The casual observer might think the lady was 

 being tormented by a crowd of ungallant males, but the opposite 

 is in reality the case for the lady is well pleased and is showing her 

 pretended feminine contempt for the male sex, who on their part 

 are trying their best to attract and charm her. At other times she 

 plants her bill firmly in the head of the suitor, and pecks at him 

 violently from time to time without letting go her hold. I have 

 seen several such one-sided fights, for the oppressed rarely fights 

 back, where the male seemed to be on the verge of exhaustion, 

 lying panting on the ground, but on being disturbed both birds flew 

 off apparently none the worse. 



Fights between rival males are also common, and here the birds 

 generally endeavor to fasten their bills into each others heads and 

 necks, and continue the fight until both are exhausted lying on the 

 ground. Peace loving human passers-by generally interrupt these 

 fights, just as they do the fights of street gamins, but the birds 

 generally fly off swearing vigorously as they go, to renew their 



