THE SPARROW 73 



is so much in evidence among human settlements, 

 whether in dense and smoky towns or at some wind- 

 swept cottage, solitary among the moorlands. It is 

 equally at home among the innumerable chimneys of 

 Fleet Street and on the shepherd's single pair of cans 

 in central Lammermuir. It has accompanied the 



70 British emigrant to colonies in virgin lands at earth's 

 remotest end, and it has followed in the track of the 

 Siberian exile to his snow-draped hut among the 

 solitudes of frozen Kamtchatka. If there is a bird 

 sacred to the human household, it is the sparrow : 

 the Roman Lares and Penates were not more intimate 

 and abiding. No bird has so attached itself to man. 

 Before he came on this mundane scene it managed 

 somehow to live; its existence is assured since he 

 came. And the wonder of its evolution from primitive 



so times to the present is increased when one considers 

 that, apart from its acquired adaptivity to changing 

 circumstances, its only outstanding physical endow- 

 ment for the battle of life is its stout little conical Its stout 

 beak. With only ordinary means at its disposal, it 

 has learned from other birds many of their special 

 accomplishments: water does not daunt it it will Its various 

 enter a stream or a pool for food like a wagtail ; it ac ^ ^ 1 ' 

 will scramble up a tree trunk like a woodpecker, ments. 

 hang from a projection like a tit, pursue and take its 



90 prey on the wing like a swift. It is as fond of a 

 water-bath as a coot, and of a dust-bath as a par- 

 tridge; it can rear a protective dome as well as 

 a wren or a dipper, when the tiles are crowded and 

 it takes to a tree ; and it builds a winter-house for 

 itself in October, furnishing it with feathers. One 

 thing it has not yet learned, though it daily sees the 



