est of diimney-pots, up, up above the smoke for 

 his booming roofward swoop. But winter and 

 summer, save along through June, the sparrows, 

 as evening falls, cut across the sky field on their 

 way to the roost in the old burial-ground. 

 There go two, there twoscore in a whirling, 

 scudding flurry, like a swift-blown bunch of au- 

 tumn leaves. For more than an hour they keep 

 passing— till the dusk turns to darkness, tiU all 

 are tucked away in bed. 



One would scarcely recognize the birds as 

 they sweep past in these flurries, their flight is 

 so unlike their usual clumsy scuttle as they get 

 out of one's way along the street. They are 

 lumpish and short- winged on the street ; they 

 labor and lumber off with a sidewise twist to 

 their bodies that reminds one of a rheumatic old 

 dog upon the trot. "What suggestion of grace 

 or swiftness about them upon the ground 1 But 

 watch them in their evening flight. It is a 

 revelation. They rise above the houses and shoot 

 across my sky like a charge of canister. I can 

 almost hear them whizz. Down by the cemetery 

 I have seen them dash into view high up in the 

 slit of sky, dive for the trees, dart zigzag like 

 [96] 



