214 THE HOUSE SPARROW. 



authorities both for and against the subaqueous pedestrianism of 

 the Dipper. But it is not to be forgotten, that in order to per- 

 form the alleged feat, it is necessary that the Dipper should have 

 the power to overcome the effects of gravitation, which the moment 

 the bird ceased its active exertions to keep below, would force it 

 to the surface of the water ; and as no such power is known to us, 

 it is only reasonable to infer that Mr. St. John, and those who 

 agree with him, are mistaken as to what they saw, and that the 

 Dipper performs no such inexplicable feat as that which they 

 have ascribed to it. 



The Incessores or Perching Birds, with which we are now deal- 

 ing, are also known as the Passerine or Sparrow-like Birds, the 

 common House-sparrow (Fringilla domestica") being thus the 

 model or type of the entire order. A word or two, therefore, for 

 the House-sparrow. " A village without Sparrows," says Mr. 

 Magillivray, " has as desolate an aspect as a house without 

 children," though unfortunately for the world the one is much 

 less rare than the other. 



The boldness and impudence of the Sparrow is familiar to 

 everybody ; and Douglas Jerrold somewhere notices the arch and 

 inquisitive way they have of looking down from the house-tops 

 at people who find their way home to the street-door in tho 

 small hours of summer mornings, when they are themselves 

 just beginning to wake up for the day. There is quite an air of 

 banter about them at such times ; and the hoarse chirp with 

 which they greet you sounds very much as though they said, 

 " Oh, oh ! Mr. Jones ; and where have you been ? and what will 

 Mrs. Jones say ?" One can almost see their elevated eyebrows 

 as they poke their fun at you ; and the fluffy shuffle with which 

 they accompany it shows that they enjoy the joke immensely 

 themselves. 



In affection for its young there are few birds which surpass the 

 Sparrow, and many interesting cases are recorded of its devoted 

 attentions. In one instance a pair of Sparrows continued to bring 

 food to the nest some months after (he young brood had left it ; 

 a ladder was placed against the wall to ascertain the cause of 

 this unusual proceeding, when a full-grown bird was found in the 

 nest, where it was kept prisoner by some thread in which it had 

 got one of its legs entangled. And Mr. Jesse mentions a case in 

 which a farm-servant having placed a nest of young Sparrows iu 



