a madly plunging kite, and hurl themselves, as 

 soft as breaths, among the branches. 



This is going to bed with a vengeance. I 

 never saw any other birds get to roost with such 

 velocity. It is characteristic, however; the 

 sparrow never does anything by halves. The 

 hurry is not caused by any mite of anxiety or 

 fear, rather from pure excess of spirit ; for after 

 rearing three broods during the summer, he has 

 such a superabundance of vim that a winter of 

 foraging and fighting is welcome exercise. The 

 strenuous life is his kind of life. When the 

 day's hunt is over and he turns back to his bed, 

 why not race it out with his neighbors? And 

 so they come— chasing, dodging, tagging neck 

 and neck, all spurting to finish first at the roost. 



"We may not love him ; but he has constitution 

 and snap. And these things do count. 



One April morning, the 6th, I went down to 

 the roost at three o'clock. The sparrows were 

 sleeping soundly. It was yet night. Had the 

 dawn been reaching up above the dark walls 

 that shut the east away from the high tree-tops, 

 the garish street light would have kept it dim. 

 The trees were silent and stirless, as quiet as the 

 7 [97] 



