TROUBLE AMONG THE BIRDS* 



EVEN at the risk of causing a feeling of dejection 

 on the reader's part, I am going to put one 

 " trouble" chapter into this volume. There are 

 trials in the birds' domain, and perhaps you and I will 

 feel more sympathy with them, and will be led to protect 

 them all the more carefully, if we know something about 

 the "deep waters of affliction" through which they are 

 sometimes compelled to pass. Our native American 

 birds, at least some of them, suffer a good deal at the 

 hands, so to speak, of the pestiferous English sparrows, 

 which were introduced into this country by some egre- 

 gious blunder. 



There can be no doubt that the English sparrows are 

 regular bullies. They do not fight other birds so much 

 as they hector them, making life intolerable by their 

 ribaldry, coarse jests, and prying manners. Some birds, 

 especially many of our beautiful native species, are 

 sensitively organized, and cannot endure such boorish 

 society as the badly bred foreigners furnish. That as 

 much as anything has driven our genteel bluebirds away 

 from our homes into the woods and other out-of-the-way 

 places. How would you feel, my friend, if, as you were 



*The larger part of this chapter was first published in "The Christian Endeavor World," 

 Boston; the rest of it in "Our Animal Friends, New York. I reprint it here by permission of 

 both these journals. 



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