66 IN A CHESHIRE GARDEN 



The dusting habit of sparrows must be 

 counted among their many iniquities when 

 they indulge in it, as they often do, in a bed 

 of newly-sown seeds, but it was strange to 

 see one dusting during the hard frost of 

 1895; one should have thought that they 

 were so out of the way of dusting in winter 

 that no sparrow would have taken advantage 

 of the rare opportunity when a long dry frost 

 made it possible. 



One day in April, 1899, a sparrow that was 

 sitting on the food-stand close by my window 

 made quite a song of his chirping. There 

 was a kind of modulation of notes, con- 

 tinuously uttered and accompanied by a 

 regular " beating time " movement of his tail. 

 On another occasion I have heard a sparrow- 

 sitting alone on the ridge of a roof, singing, 

 one could only call it, quite a little song in 

 subdued tones. 



