THE SPAEUOW. 
103 
folds, and were held close prisoners. Around them 
assembled their cackling neighbours, who appeared to be 
occupied in scolding them for their folly, instead of 
imitating the mouse that released the lion—in assisting 
them to get rid of their entanglements. They were taken 
down and freed from their fetters, but were too exhausted 
to survive their struggles, and a pair of their scolding 
neighbours took possession of their premises a few days 
after. A note in the first volume of the Zoological 
Journal states that a pair of sparrows, which had built at 
a house at Poole, were observed to continue their regular 
visit to the nest long after the time when the young 
birds take flight. This unusual circumstance continued 
throughout the year, and in the winter, a gentleman 
who had all along observed them, determined on inves¬ 
tigating its cause. He mounted a ladder, and found one 
detained a prisoner by means of a piece of string or 
worsted, which formed part of the nest, having become 
accidentally twisted round the leg. Being thus incapa¬ 
citated from procuring its own sustenance, it had been 
fed by the willing and watchful parents. A still more 
tragical occurrence is related m tne London News of 
January 20, 1844. A sparrow had built its nest in the 
eye-socket of the carved head of an ox, which formed 
part of a frieze of one of the buildings in Sackville Street, 
Dublin. By some means he had got his neck into a 
noose, and in struggling to get free had fallen out of the 
nest, suspended by the neck, like a wretched criminal, 
from the eye-socket of a skull. 
But the sparrow^s cares do not end with nest-building. 
Some fine spring morning he wakes up as usual, and finds 
