THE COMMON SPARROW. 85 



the midst of the most populous city, it never suffers itself to 

 be neglected, but adapts itself to situations. In aristocratic 

 quarters foraging on the scattered bread-crumbs of the 

 window-sill, and in less elevated localities contenting itself 

 with the refuse of the street or outyard. 



Not possessing much beauty of plumage, or perfection of 

 form, the sparrow appears perfectly well aware of these de- 

 fects, and seemingly not in the least discontented with its ple- 

 beian appearance, it never tires attracting our attention by 

 its noisy and inharmonious twitter. 



In the country the sparrow has the same amount of good 

 feeling extended towards it as the rook, and perhaps for bet- 

 ter reasons, for it destroys a quantity of grain and seeds of 

 which the amount of caterpillars also destroyed offers but 

 little requital. Constant in its attendance on the farmyard, 

 it indicates its vicinity, long before we approach the homestead, 

 by the incessant chatter of the flocks. 



A perfect cosmopolitan, it rears its brood with the same 

 satisfaction beneath the roof of the peasant's cottage as 

 among the ornate mouldings in the palace of the sovereign. 



Perhaps no other bird in the world has chosen so many 

 varied places to nidify. From our own observation we have 

 seen the sparrow breeding in the same tree as the rook, and oc- 

 casionally even intruding on the domain of the heron, taking 

 up its quarters some twenty yards below, and making amends, 

 by its noisy bustle, for the gravity of its more silent neighbour. 

 The same at St. Patrick's as at Notre Dame, we see them 

 tenanting every available place, and crowding in numbers the 

 parks of London as the orange trees fringing the Champs 

 Elysees at Paris. At times, too, the sparrow conveys an ex- 

 cellent idea of the ludicrous from the sites chosen to nidify 

 in, as we have seen the bulls' heads which grace the enta- 

 blature around the Rotundo in Dublin with the hollowed 

 eye-sockets filled up, and a joyful young brood twittering 

 away merrily in both. And again, at Rouen cathedral, and 

 Notre Dame in Paris, we see the monster's mouths forming 

 the water-spouts of these old buildings well wedged with a 

 goodly bulk of hay, from the interior of which proceed sounds 

 which had never entered into the artist's idea of the sublime. 



Indigenous. 



