THE COMMON SPARROW. 213 



numbers captured by them in the course of these 

 travels are incredibly numerous, keeping under 

 the increase of these races, and making ample 

 restitution for their plunderings and thefts. When 

 the insect race becomes scarce, the corn and seeds 

 of various kinds are ready ; their appetite changes, 

 and they feed on these with undiminished enjoy- 

 ment. 



We have scarcely another bird, the appetite of 

 which is so accommodating in all respects as that 

 of the house sparrow. It is, I believe, the only 

 bird that is a voluntary inhabitant with man lives 

 in his society, and is his constant attendant, follow- 

 ing him wherever he fixes his residence. It becomes 

 immediately an inhabitant of the new farm-house, 

 in a lonely place or recent enclosure, or even in 

 an island ; will accompany him into the crowded 

 city, and build and feed there in content, unmind- 

 ful of the noise, the smoke of the furnace, or the 

 steam-engine, where even the swallow and the mar- 

 ten, that flock around him in the country, are 

 scared by the tumult, and leave him : but the 

 sparrow, though begrimed with soot, does not 

 forsake him ; feeds on his food, rice, potatoes, or 

 almost any other extraneous substance he may find 

 in the street ; looks to him for his support, and is 

 maintained almost entirely by the industry and 

 providence of man. It is not known in a solitary 

 and independent state. 



Though I remember no bird so peculiarly asso- 

 ciated with the human race as this is, yet there are 



