WINTER NEIGHBORS. 147 



hemlock hedges. Soft-winged as the owl is, he can- 

 not steal in upon such a retreat without giving them 

 warning. 



These sparrows are becoming about the most no- 

 ticeable of my winter neighbors, and a troop of them 

 every morning watch me put out the hens' feed, and 

 soon claim their share. I rather encouraged them 

 in their neighborliness, till one day I discovered the 

 snow under a favorite plum-tree where they most 

 frequently perched covered with the scales of the 

 fruit-buds. On investigating I found that the tree 

 had been nearly stripped of its buds a very un- 

 neighborly act on the part of the sparrows, consider- 

 ing, too, all the cracked corn I had scattered for 

 them. So I at once served notice on them that our 

 good understanding was at an end. And a hint is as 

 good as a kick with this bird. The stone I hurled 

 among them, and the one with which I followed them 

 up, may have been taken as a kick ; but they were 

 only a hint of the shot-gun that stood ready in the 

 corner. The sparrows left in high dudgeon, and 

 were not back again in some days, and were then 

 very shy. No doubt the time is near at hand when 

 we shall have to wage serious war upon these spar- 

 rows, as they long have had to do on the continent of 

 Europe. And yet it will be hard to kill the little 

 wretches, the only Old World bird we have. When I 

 take down my gun to shoot them I shall probably re- 

 member that the Psalmist said, " I watch, and am as 

 a sparrow alone upon the house-top," and may be the 



