FEEDING BIRDS IN WINTER 51 
locality ; a flock feeding over certain circumscribed 
territory, and rarely beyond it, but breaking up into 
detachments and moving on, only when the original 
flock has grown too large for the food there to be ob- 
tained. In cities, I have known one flock to frequent 
the back yards of a block, and never mix with that on 
the other side of the block. A friend here has a large, 
annoying flock in the grounds in front of her house, 
yet feeds the birds at the back a few hundred feet 
away, and on the south side, and yet not one English 
sparrow has troubled her. Should they by accident 
discover her food, I think her battle will be imminent. 
It was a number of years before they discovered me. 
At first I kept them away by persistent driving. I 
would whip the trees and send them all away, out of 
the orchard. After a week or two, that answered for 
the season, unless a hard storm came on. But I made 
a business of it, did not drive one day or one hour and 
then relax my vigilance, but kept up a continuous war- 
fare. Unfortunately my neighbors on either side per- 
mitted them to nest on their premises, and my troubles 
became multiplied many times. The winter following 
I made a compromise with them, —I kept cracked corn 
at some distance from the windows in boxes on the 
trees and on the ground. In the spring I could not 
keep anything on the ground for the migrants; it was 
devoured immediately, and I saw that I must either 
dispose of the sparrows or curtail my feeding area and 
so lessen my flock. I chose the latter, and brought the 
food to the windows and there watched it, not letting 
