English Sparrow 
115 
plies as fast as the rabbit, so that he is rapidly 
inheriting the earth? Even children who have 
never been out of the slums know at least this 
one bird, this ever-present nuisance, for he 
chirps and chatters as cheerfully in the reeking 
gutters as in the prettiest gardens ; he hops with 
equal calm about the horse’s feet and trolley 
cars in crowded city thoroughfares, as he does 
about flowery fields and quiet country lanes; 
he will pick at the overflow from garbage pails 
on the sidewalk in front of teeming tenements 
and manure on the city pavements with quite 
as much relish as he will eat the fresh clean seed 
spilled by a canary, or cake-crumbs from my 
lady’s hand. Intense cold he endures with 
cheerful fortitude and as intense mid-summer 
heat without losing his astonishing vitality. 
Is it any wonder that a bird so readily adaptable 
to all sorts of conditions should thrive like a 
weed and beat his way around the world? 
Now that he has gained such headway in this 
country his extermination is practically im- 
possible, since a single pair of sparrows might 
have 275,716,983,698 descendants in ten years! 
It is foolish to talk of ridding the land of these 
vermin of birddom. The conditions that kept 
them in check at home are lacking in this great 
land of freedom and so we Americans must 
pay the penalty for ignorantly tampering with 
nature. 
