INGENIOUS SPARROWS 21) 



the sky blue and brown and green. A robin 

 flits away to the brown shadow of a bush. A 

 thrush, as soon as it is born, is wonderfully clever 

 in finding its own tints on some, wall or tree- 

 trunk. It makes believe to be a piece of this to 

 such an extent that one may approach quite close 

 to it, and it will remain absolutely motionless, so 

 long as one's eye is upon it. If the eye is removed, 

 even for a ' twinkling,' the bird will have dis- 

 appeared silently behind something before one can 

 look again. 



A pair of sparrows in the garden some time 

 ago showed much ingenuity and perseverance. 

 They began a nest in a Pyrus japonica against 

 this white house. I removed it, not wishing for 

 the noise and dirt so near the window ; they began 

 again, and again I had it removed. This time, 

 although it was apparently little more than a flat 

 beginning, there were eggs upon it, so I suppose 

 they had made it as small as they could, to avoid 

 observation. They tried again, and on removing 

 it the third time I found that the birds were over- 

 laying it with the white flowers of some sweet 

 alyssum growing below, as if from a wish to 

 render it less conspicuous against the white house. 

 The flowers were quite fresh and numerous. 

 After this they made two more trials five in all 

 and the last time the attempted nest was 



