71 



THE SPARROW 



IN ordinary estimation it is a common and worth- A common 

 less bird ; but its commonness (which approaches 

 ubiquity) is a triumph of evolution, and its worth- 

 lessness is only from a human point of view. The 

 less it is valued by man, the more sparrowdom may 

 rejoice. Worthlessness in the world's markets means 

 immunity from service to human vanity, voracity, 

 and pleasure. We neither eat it, nor wear its plumes, 

 nor sequester it in a cage. Ask a sparrow if it is 



10 ambitious of a reputation among mankind for any of 

 these ends. No ! Let the canary, and the egret, and 

 the goose (simpletons as they are!) boast of their 

 sovereign price on the table, or in the hat, or behind 

 the sugared wires. Jack Sparrow is as sensible as 

 Sancho Panza, and has no aspirations in any of these 

 directions. It is rather his glory that his marketable 

 value touched its maximum quotation two thousand 

 years ago at half a farthing. 



Its commonness is proof of its adaptivity, its Its adap- 



20 ability to suit itself to its environments, change as it 

 or they may. What other bird in the struggle which 

 the great stepmother, Nature, has imposed upon her 

 feathered charge for the attainment of the joy of 

 merely living is, on the whole, altogether so success- 

 ful ? The dodo is dead ; the eagle is disappearing ; 

 the crow is nothing so numerous, the robin scarcely 

 half as hardy, as this triumph of avian evolution. 

 It is the Dugald Dalgetty of birds, fit to go anywhere, 

 feed upon everything, and fight against anything. 



so It does not starve in the coldest, and it withstands 

 the heat of the warmest, weather, anywhere from the 



