176 A PHILOSOPHER WITH NATURE 



invasion of Europe. The sparrow does not love 

 the wood and the silent haunts of nature. He 

 follows the settler with a very practical purpose 

 in his head ; he comes to steal his corn, and to hang 

 about the homestead to pick up scraps. He is no 

 solitary hunter of winged and creeping things in 

 waste places, but has always grown fat amongst 

 the sheaves and pig-troughs of his patron. Nor has 

 the revolution in our habits affected the sparrow. 

 In these days some of us, alas ! no longer keep 

 flocks and herds or grow our own corn ; we show an 

 unmistakable tendency to crowd together in towns ; 

 we shut out most of the sky and cover the face of 

 nature for league upon league with bricks and 

 asphalt ; nearly every feathered thing retires 

 before the desolation we make. But the sparrow 

 remains, for our habits suit him better than ever. 



It is because the sparrow is a vegetarian that he 

 is the only wild bird which really lives in London. 

 ' We have many occasional feathered visitors to 

 favoured spots in London, but none of them except 

 the sparrow can truly be said to inhabit the great 

 circle twelve miles in diameter which stretches 

 outwards from St. Paul's. Here it is that the 

 sparrow has the world practically to himself. For 

 him our hundreds of miles of streets spread daily a 

 bounteous feast ; even the poorest neighbourhoods 

 find him a congenial home, and their dust-bins and 

 cab-ranks spread a table continually before him in 

 the presence of his enemies the cats. No wonder 

 the London sparrow endures the soot and risks the 

 cats ; few others of the feathered tribe have their 

 daily bread provided so regularly. 



It used to be said that the London sparrows went 



