288 BIRDS AND MAN 



to one of my top windows. While the hen was 

 sitting, the cock bird began to amuse himself by 

 bringing sprays of laburnum blossoms, neatly cut 

 off at their base from the branch, from a tree in 

 a front garden some sixty yards away ; some of 

 the sprays were used to decorate the nest, others 

 were placed on the window-ledge to be pulled 

 and tossed playfully about, and finally dropped 

 over the edge into the area below. One morning 

 I counted forty -five sprays that had been thus 

 thrown down. After a few days the laburnum 

 tree was pretty well stripped of its "dropping 

 wells of fire," and presented a forlorn and ragged 

 appearance. 



A word remains to be said here on a subject 

 discussed in my book — the excessive abundance 

 of the sparrow in our public open spaces, and 

 the need of some kind of a check on it, less 

 unpleasant to think of than the rough, bungling 

 methods employed in some of the parks. Outside 

 the parks we have seen that the cat eflFectually 

 keeps the sparrow population within bounds ; for 

 the parks, I have advocated the introduction of 

 birds that prey on the sparrow, its eggs and 

 young. I was more than ever convinced that 



