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BIBD-LIFE. 
a question of safety or danger, previously to examining 
for themselves. They will freely pick up the crumbs I 
have strewed for them before my windows, so long as I 
remain working at my writing-table; no sooner, however, 
do I turn even my face towards them than they are 
sure to decamp ! The town Sparrow is to be distin¬ 
guished from his village cousin in the same manner as 
the “ street Arab” is from the village boy. Both are 
alike artful and ill-mannered; but to the first there is 
“ nothing new under the sun.” One must really be 
blind not to allow these creatures to be possessed of 
reason! 
Even those birds which have less confidence in man 
unmistakably show similar powers. They distinguish 
with exceeding accuracy friends from foes, and learn from 
experience to know the effect and value of endeavours to 
injure them. Sportsmen are well aware that if they wish 
to get at birds difficult of approach it is useless to walk 
straight towards them, but act rather as if they would 
walk past them, taking care not to look at them, or they 
will instantly apprehend danger. Ravens, Magpies, 
Jackdaws, and Rooks, the shrewdest, perhaps, of the 
feathered tribe, distinguish with facility the sportsman 
from their friend the ploughman : they walk as carelessly 
after the plough of the latter, as they shun the gun of the 
former. Our peasants, for this very reason, assert that 
Rooks have the power of smelling powder in the gun, 
which certainly is a fallacy. The creatures, however, are 
cognizant of their enemy and his terrible weapon; one can 
put a whole colony of Rooks to flight with a wooden imita¬ 
tion of a gun. From experience they are aware, however, 
that an unarmed man is not dangerous, while, on the con¬ 
trary, they are perfectly aware of the use of the suspicious- 
