THE SPARROW. 
jr 
fSJ:' 
( Passer domes tic us , L.) 
most of our native finches are to all country 
\MILIAR as 
residents, every one, townsman or rustic alike, knows the Sparrow, 
often, indeed, too well. He is ever the same mischievous, im¬ 
pudent, noisy bird wherever found, and that is almost wherever 
man chooses to settle. He follows human steps and frequents 
human habitations like the rat among quadrupeds. No city is too 
bustling for the Sparrow, and the dirty, smoke-stained “Jims” of 
London, as they are called, contrive to pass a happy existence 
where their unsophisticated country cousins would probably find 
themselves much out of place. There are, indeed, outlying farms 
and solitary inns in the Highlands, as well as lonely districts of 
Ireland, where the Sparrow is said to be seldom or never seen. 
But the outskirts of a farmyard, with a few rambling thatched 
buildings, and perhaps a garden close at hand, are particularly 
to the Sparrow’s mind, and in such localities it may be seen in 
companies of several hundred, especially if threshing or harvesting 
operations be going on. His greed and cunning remind the 
! x spectator of the like qualities (only intensified) exhibited in the 
Indian crows, which will snatch meat from dishes as servants carry them from the 
cooking to the dining tent. The Sparrow is not so fearless as this, indeed ; but, 
owing to his thefts among the newly-sown corn, the ripe ears, and the stacked 
V 
