260 IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN 



said in his favour. His very impudence is attractive, 

 and it is hard to say why the love for human society 

 and human habitations should be condemned in the 

 sparrow as impudent familiarity, and should be wel- 

 comed in the robin-redbreast as a charming confidence. 

 Yet so it is, though it has not always been so. I 

 suppose the Roman passer was our house-sparrow, and 

 perhaps also the Greek or/>ov0os. It is now generally 

 agreed that the sparrow of the Psalms and of the New 

 Testament is not our sparrow. Yet it was so long 

 identified with it in common belief, that it seems 

 wonderful that the Psalmist's mention of it in con- 

 nection with the holiest places, and still more our 

 Lord's referring to it as a special object of the Father's 

 love, should not have done as much in winning affection 

 for the sparrow as the ballad of the 'Babes in the 

 Wood ' has undoubtedly done for the robin. But long 

 before the ' Babes in the Wood ' the sparrow had found 

 his poet, and as long as sparrows are allowed to live 

 among us, the two odes of Catullus, ' In passerem 

 Lesbitf,' and ' Luctus in niorte passer is? will plead some- 

 thing in his favour. And in spite of his mischievous 

 habits there is much to be said for him. The amount 

 of flies and other insects which he destroys is wonder- 

 ful ; and when we speak of the insects destroyed by 

 the sparrows and other birds, we must remember that 



