for him in the rain-pipes of the Fifth Avenue 

 mansions, he is there ; if you search for him in 

 the middle of the wide, silent salt-marsh, he is 

 there ; if you take— but it is vain to take the 

 wings of the morning, or of anything else, in the 

 hope of flying to a spot where the stumpy little 

 wings of the English sparrow have not already 

 carried him. 



There is something really admirable in the 

 unqualified sense of ownership, the absolute want 

 of diffidence, the abiding self-possession and cool- 

 ness of these birds. One cannot measure it in 

 the city streets, where everybody jostles and 

 stares. It can be appreciated only in the marsh : 

 here in the silence, the secrecy, the withdraw- 

 ing, where even the formidable-looking fiddler- 

 crabs shy and sidle into their holes as you pass ; 

 here, where the sparrows may perch upon the 

 rim of a great hawk's nest, twist their necks, 

 ogle you out of countenance, and demand what 

 business brought you to the marsh. 



I hunted round for a stone when one of them 



buttonholed me. He was n't insolent, but he 



was impertinent. The two hawks and the 



blackbirds flew off as I came up ; but the sparrows 



[70] 



