SHRIKE VS. SPARROW. 



57 



The worst of it is that you cannot devise traps, poison 

 or any other means for his extermination that will 

 not affect some desirable bird. He appropriates ev- 

 ery good thing to his own use. We have an excellent 

 unfurnished tenement of one room, about the size of 

 a child's head, under the eaves in the corner of the 

 barn, which we would be glad to have occupied by 

 any respectable family. It is in a very desirable 

 neighborhood, immediately adjacent to some ancient 

 cherry trees, an unkempt buckthorn hedge and a wild 

 tangle of bushes and vines, just what the birds love. 

 Every year a pair of bluebirds comes to investigate, 

 but before I can effect a lease, the unspeakable spar- 

 rows begin to move in their feather beds whereon they 

 raise about three broods a year. 



The sparrow has some wit: I will not deny that. 

 This winter I poured some melted grease on a tree in 

 order to attract the nuthatches. The nuthatches 

 came, but the sparrows soon found them out. At first 

 the nuisances played the part of the dog in the manger, 

 and when they could not knock the nuthatches off the 

 tree they contented themselves with flocking about 

 its base and making insulting remarks. The sparrows 

 then tried to climb the tree by sticking their toenails 

 into the bark. They would get up about a foot be- 



