THE BIRDS OF LONDON 175 



of his paw at a distance of some two feet even 

 while he crouched down in fear from the punishment 

 he knew would follow. I do not think any power 

 could curb the lust for sparrow-killing in that grey 

 blinking creature on the wall. 



He is off now after some other mischief and the 

 sparrows came back again. Along the flower- 

 border there is a dark discoloured patch. It has 

 been raining recently and it was here that the 

 water collected in a shallow pool. The water is 

 gone, absorbed by the sandy sub-soil beneath, and 

 the surface is covered with a thin film of black mud, 

 on which here and there the blades of a tiny bunch 

 of grass lie stretched out, whitened now with the 

 heavy dew they have gathered in the night. It is 

 just the spot the earthworms like to come to the 

 surface to feed in, and last night has been a night 

 such as they love ; one can see the fresh casts which 

 have been thrown up since the rain. One of the 

 blue and pink burrowers has evidently come to the 

 surface to stay, and he wriggles feebly and aimlessly 

 on the moist ground. Presently a sparrow hops 

 this way, the early bird is about to have his worm, 

 you think. But no, he passes by and almost over 

 it without appearing to see it. 



The sparrow is no lover of creeping things, but 

 it conies quite as a surprise to many of his admirers 

 to learn that he is a vegetarian. Yet this is the 

 trait in his character which will probably earn for 

 him a place in history. It is because he is a vege- 

 tarian that the English sparrow has followed in the 

 wake of the great Anglo-Saxon invasion of the 

 world's wildernesses, even as his ancestors probably 

 followed long ages ago in the wake of the Aryan 



