198 THE RECTORY AND ITS BIRDS 



him ; but it is too late. The sparrows have multiplied, 

 like the Israelites in Egypt, or the Negroes in the 

 United States, till, as in the case of the rabbits in 

 Australia, the land can hardly hold them. Worst 

 count of all, by their greediness and their pug- 

 nacity, both there and here, they often succeed in 

 driving away other and more interesting birds. 

 The sweetest songsters, the birds of more re- 

 tiring disposition or more delicate organisation 

 the nightingale, the blackcap, the garden warbler, 

 the whitethroat, the willow wren will not stay 

 where sparrows are numerous. The nest is huge, 

 ill-built, unshapely, untidy, with a rough dome 

 made of long wisps of hay or straw, often mixed 

 with bits of paper or tags of wool, and lined with 

 a profusion of feathers in which the speckled eggs 

 are almost lost. But, even here, the sparrow 

 shows her want of taste. Unlike the long-tailed 

 tit, which lines her exquisite nest with a per- 

 fect feather-bed of feathers of the daintiest colours, 

 carefully selected from distant parts and of extra- 

 ordinary softness, the house-sparrow pounces on 

 those she first comes across, generally those from 

 the poultry yard, specially such as an old hen, flying 

 heavily upwards to her perch or roost, drops in large 

 numbers from her unwieldy body. These the 



