WINTER NEIGHBORS 133 



The English house sparrows, which are so rapidly 

 increasing among us, and which must add greatly to 

 the food supply of the owls and other birds of prey, 

 seek to battle their enemies by roosting in the 

 densest evergreens they can find, in the arbor-vitae, 

 and in hemlock hedges. Soft-winged as the owl 

 is, he cannot steal in upon such a retreat without 

 giving them warning. 



These sparrows are becoming about the most 

 noticeable of my winter neighbors, and a troop of 

 them every morning watch me put out the hens' 

 feed, and soon claim their share. I rather encour- 

 aged them in their neighborliness, till one day I 

 discovered the snow under a favorite plum-tree 

 where they most frequently perched covered with 

 the scales of the fruit-buds. On investigating, I 

 found that the tree had been nearly stripped of its 

 buds, a very unneighborly act on the part of the 

 sparrows, considering, too, all the cracked corn I 

 had scattered for them. So I at once served notice 

 on them that our good understanding was at an end. 

 And a hint is as good as a kick with this bird. 

 The stone I hurled among them, and the one with 

 which I followed them up, may have been taken 

 as a kick; but they were only a hint of the shot- 

 gun that stood ready in the corner. The sparrows 

 left in high dudgeon, and were not back again in 

 some days, and were then very shy. No doubt 

 the time is near at hand when we shall have to 

 wage serious war upon these sparrows, as they long 

 have had to do on the continent of Europe. And 



