The Sparrow. 173 



habits no being so much as the street boy. They 

 are both the result and outcome of life in a 

 crowded city, and have practically the same vices 

 aud foibles. Watch them in a busy street; they 

 are thievish, self-assertive, and pugnacious. The 

 sparrow is also the impersonation of vanity ; for, 

 notwithstanding that, like the street boy's, its 

 coat is always dirty and very much out-at-elbows, 

 and that its general appearance conveys the idea 

 that it sleeps in a chimney, and that a very 

 crowded one, it evidently considers itself the 

 pink of perfection, and we have no doubt looks 

 down on its country cousin in his neat suit of 

 brown, black, and grey as being badly dressed 

 and generally a very inferior person. 



To thoroughly appreciate the vanity of the 

 sparrow the cock bird must be seen on a sunny 

 morning in early spring when engaged in dis- 

 playing his charms to the lady of his love; then, 

 indeed, is he in all his glory. How he struts 

 and swells, and spreads his tail, often nothing 

 finer than a few stunted feathers ! No peacock, 

 we are convinced, has a higher opinion of him- 

 self, or thinks himself a finer fowl. The London 

 sparrow is generally spoken of as a wild bird, 

 though in reality a tamer and more homely bird 

 does not exist on the face of the earth; indeed, 

 were it wild, in the strict sense of the term, its 

 existence, in the crowded streets of London at 

 least, would be a short, but certainly not a 

 merry, one. As we have before remarked, the 



