OLD FRIENDS IN NEW PLACES 



stalk, and dropping upon the ground where the seed is 

 scattered, with many a suspicious flip of wing and flirt of 

 tail. A dozen or more are soon hurriedly feeding again, 

 now and then running spitefully at one another, as if the 

 aggressors felt a prior claim, but not actually coming to 

 blows. 



When the dry grass and weeds cover the seed a song 

 sparrow may be seen now and then executing a quick 

 movement upon it with both feet, a short double jump 

 forwards and backwards. This is the way the sparrow 

 scratches — a crude and awkward way, certainly. She 

 has not yet learned to stand alternately upon one foot and 

 scratch with the other, as do the hen and all other true 

 scratchers, and she probably never will. The sparrows, 

 and many other birds, move the two feet together. They 

 are hoppers, and not walkers or runners. Such birds make 

 a poor show of scratching. The chewink scratches in the 

 same way, but being a much larger bird, she rakes or kicks 

 obtruding weeds about quite successfully. 



In less than two minutes the birds again take the alarm 

 and dart away to their weedy refuge. 



This is the habit of all birds that feed in numbers 

 in this way in open places. Snow buntings, juncoes, 

 sparrows, reed-birds, blackbirds — all are haunted 

 by a vague sense of impending danger when they are 

 feeding, and are given to sudden flights to cover, 

 or to circling in the air. 



I remember that the flocks of passenger pigeons 

 that I used to see in my youth would burst uj) from 

 the ground when they were feeding, at short inter- 

 vals, in the same sudden, alarmed way. It is easy 

 to see how the fear of all ground-feeders has become 



97 



