222 FAMILIARITY WITH MAN. 



each other, and are liable to be broken up by slight causes. 

 Its usual places of resort are those in the immediate 

 vicinity of human habitations ; and at night it reposes 

 under the eaves of houses, about chimneys, in holes and 

 crevices of buildings, and among ivy covering walls. 

 During a great part of the year it subsists chiefly on the 

 fragments of ejected food which it finds about the doors, 

 on the streets, or on dung-hills. But it also feeds upon 

 grain, which it obtains abundantly during several weeks 

 in autumn on the standing corn, and less profusely in 

 winter, when it searches the stubble fields. 



Of all the feathered race, there is perhaps not one which 

 attends so closely and constantly upon man as this bird, 

 which is, we believe, seldom or ever found far from a 

 human habitation ; in the streets of busy cities, as well as 

 on the thatched roof of the quiet village, the members of 

 its chirping family are found ' picking up the unconsidered 

 trifles,' close beside the feet of passers by. The London 

 Sparrows are proverbial for their boldness, of which many 

 anecdotes might be related. The Sparrow, too, is a classic 

 bird, immortalised by the Latin poet, Catullus, who touch- 

 ingly laments the death of Lesbia's Sparrow. The German 

 poet Burger welcomes this bird to his hall ; and our old 

 dramatist, Lily, gives to the mother of Cupid a team of 

 Sparrows instead of Doves, which are generally said to be 

 her chosen birds. 



Bishop Mant, who loses no opportunity of pointing a 

 moral, thus alludes to the noisy conclave which Sparrows 

 sometimes hold, as if they were disputing about right of 

 precedence, or some equally important matter : 



But hark ! what hurtling noise is there ? 

 What sound of rushing through the air ? 

 Close lurking in the laurel boughs, 

 My steps a host of Sparrows rouse ; 

 Up from their couch at once they spring, 

 And brush, brush, brush, with rustling wing, 

 Wheel off to yonder leafless trees ; 

 There sit they, thick as clustering bees ; 

 Till, past the terror, back they crowd, 

 And with tumultuous clamour loud, 



