THE BIEDS AND THE BOOK 9 



his every movement ; and if lie sit down on a 

 chair or bench several of them will come close 

 to him, and hop this way and that before him, 

 uttering a little plaintive note of interrogation 

 Have you got nothing for us ? They have come 

 to look on every human being who walks among 

 the park trees and round the garden-beds as a 

 mere perambulating machine for the distribution 

 of fragments of bread. The sparrow's theory or 

 philosophy of life, from our point of view, is 

 very ridiculous, but he finds it profitable, and 

 wants no better. 



I remember that during those days, when 

 the little creatures were so much with me, 

 whether I wanted them or no, some person 

 wrote to one of the newspapers to say that he 

 had just made the acquaintance of the common 

 sparrow in a new character. The sparrow was 

 and always had been a familiar bird to him, but 

 he had never previously seen it gathered in 

 crowds at its ' afternoon tea ' in Hyde Park, a 

 spectacle which he had now witnessed with 

 surprise and pleasure. 



If (I thought) this innumerous feathered 

 company could only be varied somewhat, the 

 modest plumage retouched, by Nature, with 



