7O THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 
no other bird. By living close to man the sparrow 
is largely saved from the danger of capture by these 
carnivorous creatures, and this is the first and a very 
important element of the advantage to the sparrow of 
living near man. But there is the additional advan- 
tage that man scatters about him, in one way or an- 
other, a very considerable amount of waste food. I 
have suggested that the seeds in the droppings of the 
horse form a large proportion of the sparrow’s food, 
and horses are to be found only with men. In the 
neighborhood of man’s home, unless he has become 
sanitary to a degree which has only been attained in 
recent years, there is usually more or less garbage, 
kitchen offal of one sort or another. To this the 
sparrow has easy access and from it he makes many 
a meal. But this fearlessness of man gives him still 
another advantage which his competitors fear to use, 
it provides him with nesting sites. 
Man has the faculty of putting up ornamental trim- 
mings on his house, and there is no spot the sparrow 
chooses more willingly in which to build his nest than 
the ornamental quirks and cornices of man’s archi- 
tecture. A Corinthian column with comely leaves in 
its capital seems especially designed for the comfort 
of the sparrow, and his distinctly untidy nest is the 
familiar disfigurement of almost every ornate public 
building. These are the advantages which come to 
