A LONDON  IDYLL. 
Being the true story of a remarkable incident in Sparrow Town. 
Witnessed and described by SARA Scorn. 
HE Londoner's cheery, chirping, ubiquitous friend the sober-hued sparrow is 
a past master in all the tactics essential to a conqueror in the hard struggle for 
existence, and any mere mortal who could furnish him with additional points must 
necessarily be clever indeed. He is not troubled with the smallest scruple about 
plundering his neighbour, who straightway sets about snatching a morsel from the 
very beak of another. And so the eternal struggle goes on, lightened by his cheerful 
adaptibility and his unlimited capacity for making the best of things. He is a lesson 
in the practice of many virtues, if somewhat weak in his ethics and unblushingly 
selfish. But these are only his every-day traits, brought out by the common occurrences 
of his busy life. In a great crisis, as when suffering or danger attend his offspring, he is 
capable of a passion of devotion, perseverance and endurance hardly less than human. 
The following incident, which came under my own observation, illustrates what may 
well be called this higher side of his character :—The scene was a shaft-like space in 
Princes Street, Oxford Street, in which were several back yards belonging to the flats 
and houses by which the yards were surrounded on all four sides. None of these 
houses was less than six storeys in height; and as the walls abutting the yards were 
faced with smooth white tiles they hardly afforded foothol| for a beetle, much less a 
bird. The several yards were separated from each other by the usual wall. 
It was here that a youthful sparrow managed by mischance to fall into the space 
between the two halves of an open window in what seemed an empty flat, whilst 
apparently taking his first flight. Im his ill-judged efforts to free himself he only 
succeeded in passing below the framework separating the panes of glass, and so became 
still more securely imprisoned. The accident would probably have remained unobserved 
had it not been brought to our notice by the loud, distressful outcry raised by his 
parents when they discovered the critical condition of their offsprmg. The parent birds 
* 
Photograph by C. Reid, Wishaw, N.B. 
FOUR YOUNG SPARROWS. 
267 
