220 ODD HOURS WITH NATURE 



on the situation. If the watcher moves slowly 

 away, still keeping an eye on them, he will find 

 before he has gone fifty paces that first one of 

 the marauders drops down among the corn in 

 the old place, then three, then five, then the whole 

 flock ; and before he has gone a hundred yards 

 they are all feeding as greedily again as if they 

 had been on short -commons for a month. If, 

 on the other hand, the enemy looks like making 

 a stay, they will without much loss of time shift 

 their quarters, and begin operations on another 

 part of the field at a safe distance away. 



The sparrows' digestion of grain must be 

 enormously rapid, for such is their dexterity in 

 stripping a head of wheat or oats that they seem 

 capable of eating in a quarter of an hour as much 

 as should stuff tight their little insides. Yet they 

 are at the job the greater part of the day. There 

 is a period, usually about midday, when they leave 

 off for a considerable spell. Then it is their joy to 

 assemble in, for choice, a hawthorn -tree, which 

 has a great abundance of little branches adapted 

 to the size of sparrows' feet, for a real good 

 gossip. To the ear of flesh they seem all to say 

 the same thing, and to say it in one word repeated 

 a million times. But the ear of the imagination 

 readily detects that the conversation is both 

 animated and varied. It is in praise of corn and 

 the delights of eating one's fill again and again. 

 How glorious it is to be nearly choked a dozen 

 times a day with sheer abundance, after picking 

 up a living which hardly suffices to keep one's 

 feathers tight through ten months of the year I 



