SPARROW HAWK 



5482 



SPARTA 



gather in flocks on spring mornings and eve- 

 nings and sins enchantingly in chorus. The tree 

 sparrow, cr winter chippy, and the chipping 

 sparrow are marked with chestnut crowns. The 

 grasshopper sparrow is a small ground bird with 

 an insectlike note. The field sparrow frequents 

 dry pastures and hillsides. The seaside and 

 the sharp-tailed sparrows are found in salt 

 marshes on the coast. 



The English, or house, sparrow, a nondescript 

 bird found about houses and villages in most 

 parts of the Old World, was introduced into the 

 United States in the middle of the last century 

 and has spread with incredible rapidity to all 

 parts of the country, driving out the native 

 sparrows, wrens, martins, bluebirds, and even 

 mocking birds, and replacing their songs with 

 its continual strident chirpings. It rears three 

 or four broods in a season, building in any 

 available place of any available material, prov- 

 ing a pest about buildings, especially in eave 

 troughs and drains. The eggs are five to seven 

 in number, generally white in color, finely 

 marked with olive. 



Though some contend that the English spar- 

 row is valuable in the destruction of the seeds 

 of noxious plants, the general agreement is that 

 we should be better off if we could exterminate 

 the noisy little alien and invite back our former 

 bird neighbors. M.A.H. 



Consult Ridgway's Birds of North and Middle 

 America. 



SPARROW HAWK, the smallest of the 

 hawks, measuring about ten inches in length. 

 It breeds from Northern Canada to Northern 

 Mexico, and winters in the Southern United 

 States and south to Guatemala. Its back and 

 shoulders are marked with reddish-browri and 

 black, and its wings are a grayish-blue. It is 

 commonly seen perched on dead trees, tele- 

 graph poles and "other elevations, watching for 

 its food, which consists of insects, small rodents, 

 reptiles and sometimes smaller birds. It nests 

 in holes in trees. The eggs are five to seven in 

 number, creamy-white to reddish in color, 

 marked with brown. Because of the good serv- 

 ice it renders in destroying harmful insects and 

 rodents, the little sparrow hawk should be en- 

 couraged and protected. 



SPAR'TA, famed in Grecian history as the 

 land of warriors and the abode of war, was the 

 capital of Laconia, and at one time the most 

 powerful city state in ancient Greece. It was 

 picturesquely located in the northern part of 

 the central plain of Laconia, about thirty miles 

 from the Mediterranean Sea and on the right 



bank of the Eurotas River. Laconia was the 

 southernmost division of that part of Greece 

 known as the Peloponnesus (see map on page 

 3292). Sparta was in reality a community of 

 five different villages having a common market 

 place. The settlement lacked a rock citadel, 

 such as its rival, the city of Athens, possessed 

 in the Acropolis, but Sparta was so safeguarded 

 from invasion by mountain barriers that it de- 

 veloped into a powerful state on the level plain, 

 without even a wall about it. 



Early History. According to tradition the 

 city was founded by Lacedaemon, a son of 

 Zeus by the mortal Taygete. The legend has 

 it that Lacedaemon married Sparta, a daughter 



LOCATION MAP 



of Eurotas, and named the city for his wife. 

 While many details of the authentic history of 

 the settlement are unknown to us, it is gener- 

 ally accepted that the city was taken over by 

 the Dorians, about 1000 B.C., when they in- 

 vaded the Peloponnesus. These Dorians were 

 the ancestors of the Spartans. 



In the latter part of the ninth century a great 

 lawgiver appeared Lycurgus who framed a 

 new constitution or perhaps revised one already 

 existing. The adoption of this constitution laid 

 the foundations for the prosperity and growth 

 of the Spartan state. It provided for two kings 

 who ruled jointly, a senate of elders, twenty- 

 eight in number, a governing board of five 

 ephors, and a general assembly composed of 

 all Spartan citizens over thirty years of age. 

 Rigid military training was imposed, a system 

 that produced men of iron nerve and women 

 who said to their sons as they departed to bat- 

 tle, "Come home with your shield or upon it." 

 This stern training deserves special description. 



Training the Spartan Boy. Every Spartan 

 belonged to the state from the time of his 



