FEEDING BIRDS IN WINTER 51 



locality; a flock feeding over certain circumscribed 

 territory, and rarely beyond it, but breaking up into 

 detachments and moving on, only when the original 

 flock has grown too large for the food there to be ob- 

 tained. In cities, I have known one flock to frequent 

 the back yards of a block, and never mix with that on 

 the other side of the block. A friend here has a large, 

 annoying flock in the grounds in front of her house, 

 yet feeds the birds at the back a few hundred feet 

 away, and on the south side, and yet not one English 

 sparrow has troubled her. Should they by accident 

 discover her food, I think her battle will be imminent. 

 It was a number of years before they discovered me. 

 At first I kept them away by persistent driving. I 

 would whip the trees and send them all away, out of 

 the orchard. After a week or two, that answered for 

 the season, unless a hard storm came on. But I made 

 a business of it, did not drive one day or one hour and 

 then relax my vigilance, but kept up a continuous war- 

 fare. Unfortunately my neighbors on either side per- 

 mitted them to nest on their premises, and my troubles 

 became multiplied many times. The winter following 

 I made a compromise with them, I kept cracked corn 

 at some distance from the windows in boxes on the 

 trees and on the ground. In the spring I could not 

 keep anything on the ground for the migrants ; it was 

 devoured immediately, and I saw that I must either 

 dispose of the sparrows or curtail my feeding area and 

 so lessen my flock. I chose the latter, and brought the 

 food to the windows and there watched it, not letting 



