SPARROW. 
79 
out, and seizing his beak above the nostrils, with her own 
beak, pulled it so hard that she killed him. She did not 
appear, however, aware of the mischief she had done, but 
continued pulling at the dead body of the unfortunate bird, 
with as much perseverance as if it had been alive. She 
was, at length, driven away by a person who saw the whole 
transaction, and with some difficulty extricated the dead bird. 
Its head was dreadfully mangled, and the beak of the hen 
had evidently penetrated the brain. About an hour afterwards, 
a Sparrow, supposed to be this hen, was observed sitting on 
the very spot where the accident had happened, crouched 
together, with her feathers all standing up, so as to give 
her the appearance of a ball, conveying a perfect idea of 
disconsolate suffering.’ 
‘A few years ago,’ says Mr. James Bladon, of Pontypool, 
in the Zoologist,’ pages 16-17, ‘I was sitting in a cottage, 
when my attention was attracted to an unusual screaming 
of a small bird. I immediately went to the back door, and 
saw that it proceeded from a House Sparrow that was 
fluttering about on the wall, at the base of which was a 
duck with something in its bill, which it was endeavouring 
to swallow. Upon attentively observing it, I found this to 
be a callow nestling, and from the agonies of the poor 
Sparrow, there was no mistaking the parent; the feathers of 
the latter were all erect, and it continued hopping and flut¬ 
tering about, and uttering the most distressing cries for the 
loss of one of its young, which I suppose had fallen out of 
its nest.’ 
For a considerable portion of the year, Sparrows are occupied 
in pairs in the bringing out their several broods of young, 
and when the last of these is able to fly, the old and young 
ones together repair to the fields, where, during the time 
that the corn is ripe, they are to be seen in large flocks, 
gathering in their own harvest; but when the crops are 
carried, and the gleaning is over, they soon repair to their 
former quarters, and renew their familiarity with the habitations 
of men. They may indeed at all times be considered as 
gregarious birds in some degree; at all events they are 
generally brought together in greater or less numbers, so that 
I the ‘Sparrow that sitteth alone upon the house-top’ has been 
well selected by the Psalmist as an emblem of forlorn melan- 
j clioly. They shew considerable affection to each other, and 
i anxiety for their young, and are spirited, courageous, energetic, 
