70 WINTER NEIGHBORS. 



seek out smaller cavities. An old willow by the road- 

 side blew down one summer, and a decayed branch 

 broke open, revealing a brood of half-fledged owls, 

 and many feathers and quills of bluebirds, orioles, and 

 other songsters, showing plainly enough why all birds 

 fear and berate the owl. 



The English house sparrows, that are so rapidly 

 Increasing among us, and that must add greatly to the 

 food supply of the owls and other birds of prey, seek 

 to baffle their enemies by roosting in the densest ever- 

 greens they can find, in the arbor- vitae, and in hem- 

 lock hedges. Soft-winged as the owl is, he cannot 

 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 unneighborly act on the 

 part of the sparrows, considering, too, all the cracked 

 corn I had scattered for them. So I at once served 

 Botice 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 

 a^. hand when we shall have to wage serious war- upon 



