7O THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 



no other bird. By living close to man the sparrow 

 is largely saved from the danger of capture by these 

 carnivorous creatures, and this is the first and a very 

 important element of the advantage to the sparrow of 

 living near man. But there is the additional advan- 

 tage that man scatters about him, in one way or an- 

 other, a very considerable amount of waste food. I 

 have suggested that the seeds in the droppings of the 

 horse form a large proportion of the sparrow's food, 

 and horses are to be found only with men. In the 

 neighborhood of man's home, unless he has become 

 sanitary to a degree which has only been attained in 

 recent years, there is usually more or less garbage, 

 kitchen offal of one sort or another. To this the 

 sparrow has easy access and from it he makes many 

 a meal. But this fearlessness of man gives him still 

 another advantage which his competitors fear to use, 

 it provides him with nesting sites. 



Man has the faculty of putting up ornamental trim- 

 mings on his house, and there is no spot the sparrow 

 chooses more willingly in which to build his nest than 

 the ornamental quirks and cornices of man's archi- 

 tecture. A Corinthian column with comely leaves in 

 its capital seems especially designed for the comfort 

 of the sparrow, and his distinctly untidy nest is the 

 familiar disfigurement of almost every ornate public 

 building. These are the advantages which come to 



