190 THE BIRD OF THE STREET. 



youngster was in sight. But while I looked, 

 there was a sudden flutter of wings, and four 

 little sparrows swept around the corner of the 

 house and alighted in the old tree. " Oh dear ! 

 here they are again ! " was plainly expressed by 

 a few harsh notes, a craned neck, and a dis- 

 couraged pause in his operations. 



After the second day the little group of four 

 was suddenly enlarged to eight or nine, and 

 I supposed that some other abandoned young- 

 lings had joined the spruce-tree babies. Wher- 

 ever they came from, they were as intimate as 

 one family, chattering softly among themselves, 

 flying together in a little flock, and all bent on 

 making that particular tree their headquarters. 



For nine days I watched this contest going 

 on, a little less vigorously as the days went by, 

 but never quite given up on either side. I 

 could not see that nesting was begun again, 

 and I did not notice another brood in the tree 

 that season. I think the parents were disheart- 

 ened and made a nest elsewhere. After a few 

 days of street life the fresh young birds were 

 dusty as their parents. The neighborly alli- 

 ance still continued, and the strangers seemed 

 to adopt the cause of the triumphant babies as 

 their own. 



Often the whole little flock of eight or nine 

 alighted on the tree, crept to the inner branches 



