22 My Garden Summer-Seat. 



served their purpose, making very free with the thatch 

 on some of the outhouses for the same end. A second 

 brood was hatched in the end of June or beginning of 

 July. Now, is it possible that Mr. Sparrow wants a 

 ready-made nest for a third brood, feeling that he does 

 not have time to build one for himself in a situation 

 that would be sufficiently protected in the cold nights 

 and mornings of later August and September, and 

 deems that he may safely make the swallows victim, 

 as all is fair in love and war ? — that is the only infer- 

 ence I can draw from what I have seen to-day from 

 my garden-seat. No wonder the sparrows increase 

 in spite of all the efforts to keep them down ; no 

 wonder that in the United States of America they 

 have had to declare war against them by special enact- 

 ment, branding that man as an enemy of his country 

 who will feed or harbour them in any way. They are 

 most pugnacious when anything arises affecting their 

 rights or self-interests on the part of other birds, and 

 understand thoroughly the principle of trades unions, 

 and work it out practically. I have seen two sparrows 

 on my lawn attack a blackbird who had just managed 

 to get out of the hard earth a considerable worm, and 

 so systematically pursue the attack that the blackbird 

 was routed, and had to leave his prize to be carried 

 off and enjoyed by others. They are the " streeties " 

 or gamins of the bird world, these sparrows, with 

 little time or care for sentiment or song beyond a few 

 notes of call, sweet in their way, and all bent on the 

 practical demands of life. 



I have heard no end of tales of temporarily disused 

 chimneys in country houses having been utilised by 

 the swallows and the sparrows till the aperture for the 

 ascent of the smoke was quite closed up, and then, 



