THE UNDERLYING IDEA 75 
lieve the truth to be that, while the sparrow is un- 
doubtedly a quarrelsome fellow, his bickerings are his 
form of social converse with those of his own kind. 
A quarrel among themselves seems not to indicate ani- 
mosity, but would appear to be the sparrow’s idea of 
conviviality. It rarely leads to serious results. I have 
never seen a male sparrow trounce any other bird with 
half the vigor that I have occasionally seen the mother 
sparrow evince when she caught her male companion 
by the feathers of his head, hung him over the side 
of the limb, and vigorously and thoroughly shook him 
until he desisted from his annoying and possibly in- 
sulting attentions. The truth of the matter is that a 
colony of these little birds, with their continual social 
chatter, including their quarrels, makes such a con- 
tinuous noise that the ordinary bird, which is gen- 
erally of rather quiet disposition, is too much annoyed 
by the unending nuisance to find the neighborhood at 
all to his taste. Where a large number of sparrows 
have gathered together the conditions are such as 
would give a robin or a bluebird nervous prostration, 
and his only recourse is to depart to a neighborhood 
where there is more peace and quiet. But our Eng- 
lish sparrow is not only better fitted for the struggle 
than the robins and bluebirds, the orioles and the 
wrens. He has one important advantage over even 
his own sparrow cousins. The males are handsome— 
