84 



Handbook of Naturc-Siitdy 



THE ENGLISH SPARROW 



Teacher's Story 



So dainty in plumage and hue, 



A study in grey and in brown. 

 How little, hoiv little we hneiv 



The pest he ivoidd prove to the town! 

 From dawn until daylight grou's dim, 



Perpetual chatter and scold. 

 No winter migration for him. 



Not even afraid of the cold! 

 Scarce a song-bird he fails to molest, 



Belligerent, meddlesome thing! 

 Wherever he goes as a guest 



He is sure to remain as a King. 



— Mary Isabella Forsyth. 



The English sparrow, like the poor and the house-fly, is always with 

 us ; and since he is here to stay, let us make him useful if we can devise 

 any means of doing so. There is no bird that gives the pupils a more 

 difficult exercise in describing colors and markings than does he; and his 

 wife is almost equally difficult. I have known fairly skilled ornithologists 

 to be misled by some variation in color of the hen sparrow, and it is safe 

 to assert that the majority of people "do not know her from Adam." 

 The male has the top of the head gray with a patch of reddish brown on 

 either side; the middle of the throat and upper breast is black; the sides 

 of the throat white ; the lower breast and under parts grayish white; the 



