THE SPA11E0W. 
105 
if they had but the strength to do it. He flies here, 
there, and everywhere; and however much he brings, 
there is always the same cry, and the same cluster of 
gaping jaws to greet him. It is enough for both parents 
now to keep their six juvenile gizzards grinding, while 
the six juvenile mouths, like separate and determined 
Olivers, keep crying out for “ more ! 33 
With this attention and good feeding, the babes in the 
nest soon become babes in the wood, and the fond pa¬ 
rents, inflated with pride, take out their chelping children 
on short excursions over tiles and parapets, and then 
down into gardens, where they both feed them alter¬ 
nately from their own mouths. While the father is 
offering them what he has brought in his bill, the mother 
is foraging elsewhere, and when she returns, he darts off 
again, and thus protection and food are both adminis¬ 
tered. A week's exercise in this way completes the 
education of the fledglings, and then the sparrow colony 
breaks up ; the old citizen birds leave the town to sun 
themselves in corn-fields, and make acquaintance with 
the rustics that dwell in the thatch. An ivied wall, 
which has sheltered fifteen or twenty pairs in spring, is 
almost deserted before July, and the cheerful chelping 
that woke the townsman in the morning, and cheered 
him as he took tea at the open window in the evening, 
is now scarcely heard, a few young birds of the new 
brood being all that are left to people the once populous 
city in the ivy. The sparrow is never silent long, and 
so these few keep np the sparrow music through the 
summer; and, to an ordinary observer, who sees wings 
in motion in every garden, and hears the unmistakable 
