THE UNDERLYING IDEA 73 
of various kinds, and feeds them to his young. This 
taste passes as his children grow older, especially as 
shortly the seeds begin to ripen. Now is the time 
for the sparrow to fatten. Now he is eating the 
food for which he was really built. By the time the 
wheat is ripe there are sparrows enough about to form 
quite a flock, and when these settle down in a wheat, 
rye, or oats field and feed upon the grain, meanwhile 
shaking out upon the ground perhaps as much as they 
eat, the farmer begins to realize that the sparrow is 
not his friend. 
When winter comes the struggle for existence 
among the birds is intensified, and comparatively few 
of them dare face it. Most of our birds betake them- 
selves to less rigorous quarters, leaving to the spar- 
row a comparatively small number of competitors for 
the diminished supply of food. As long as the snow 
is off the ground the sparrows can find sufficient sus- 
tenance. They gather themselves into groups and sally 
out from the city into the open country. The imme- 
diate result is that great quantities of weed seeds are 
seized upon by the English sparrow, as, indeed, by 
every other finch which is with us in winter. Per- 
haps we have not given the little fellow credit for 
the good he does at this particular time, for the rest 
of the account truly does not help him in our esteem. 
There is a further direct advantage in the sparrow’s 
