DEMERITS OF HOUSE-SPARROW 197 



chirp is raised, every sparrow in the neighbourhood 

 rushes to join in the fray. There is no inquiry as 

 to rights or wrongs ; no stint, no stay. Every one is 

 against his neighbour. They go dashing in com- 

 pact mass, tumbling over each other and over walls, 

 "thorough bush, thorough briar," sometimes rolling 

 headlong in the dust, the din of the conflict and the 

 number of the combatants increasing every moment, 

 for perhaps a couple of minutes, and then it all dies 

 away. They disperse to their several occupations, 

 no one being the better, and no one, apparently, 

 much the worse for it. 



What is more serious, the sparrow multiplies at 

 a positively alarming rate ; he has three or four 

 broods a year, and five or six young in each. It is 

 not a case, note, of "live and let live." The 

 sparrow-hawk and other of his natural enemies 

 have been killed down, and every new house which 

 is built gives him half a dozen new places in which 

 he may build in safety, and from which it is very 

 difficult to dislodge him. English settlers in 

 America and Australia, naturally anxious, in their 

 exile, for anything which could remind them of the 

 "old country," even for the twitter of the irrepres- 

 sible house-sparrow, imported him into their new 

 homes. Now they would give anything to get rid of 



