60 BIRDS OP THE WEST 



ing the coldest days of winter often go down chimneys to spend 

 the night and keep warm. Possibly you may have seen a flock 

 of the little fellows playing in the snow and showing evidence 

 that they have slept the night before in the coal bin. 



He is against race suicide. Different forms of life use dif- 

 ferent means of preserving their species. Some do it by produc- 

 ing a multitude of young of which many survive just because 

 their enemies cannot kill all of them; some regard life as a battle 

 in which the fittest will survive and therefore they prepare to 

 fight their way through it, while some live in localities not in- 

 habited by their natural enemies. Which method does the En- 

 glish sparrow use? All of them and several more besides. 



Bird-lovers concede him to the gunner to satisfy the love of 

 carnage, that element of savagery still left to man, but it is too 

 bad that they so often have to throw the blackbirds to the tigers, 

 too. You need waste no sympathy upon the sparrow, however, 

 for he can take care of himself and a wife or two and a dozen 

 or more children and if there is a creature on earth that looks 

 out for number one any better than he does, you would do well 

 to find him. He hasn't many friends, but he doesn't care. 



CHIPPING SPARROW. 



In the east a little bird used to come regularly to the door- 

 step when grandmother shook the tablecloth and with a constant 

 "Chip", "Chip", "Chip" between bites, gathered every little 

 crumb. It was the commonest bird of all until its English cousin 

 arrived. It is a far less common bird in Dakota. 



It gets up at a very early hour and sits up pretty late for such 

 a little bird but only to sing its song over and over again for 

 it is a musical little fellow and often wakes up in the night and 

 trills a dreamy song or two. 



What a delicate little nest it builds! And it always lines it 

 with horse-hair. I used to w^atch them come to the wooden hitch- 

 ing posts and tug at the hairs that had been pulled out of the 

 horses' manes. Some of them came pretty hard too, but they had 

 to have them. 



Every little bird has a choice of material for its home. I 

 have never seen an Arkansas flycatcher's nest that did not have 

 white wrapping twine in it, nor a kingbird's without cotton or 



