io8 Birds Every Child Should Know 
find them and readily adapt themselves to 
whatever conditions they meet. How wonder- 
fully that saucy little gamin, the English spar- 
row, has adjusted himself to this new land! 
Members of the more aristocratic finch and 
grosbeak branches of the family, however, who 
wear brighter clothes, pay the penalty by de- 
creasing numbers as our boasted civilisation 
surrounds them. Gay feathers afford a shining 
mark. Naturally grosbeaks prefer to live 
among protective trees. They are delightful 
singers, and so, indeed, are some of their plain 
little sparrow cousins. 
All the members of the family have strong, 
conical bills well suited to crush seeds, and 
gizzards, like a chicken’s, to grind them fine. 
These little grist-mills within the birds’ bodies 
extract all the nourishment there is from the 
seed. The sparrow tribe, you will notice, do 
immense service by destroying the seeds of 
weeds, which, but for them, would quickly 
overrun the farmer’s fields and choke his crops. 
Because these hardy gleaners can pick up a 
living almost anywhere, they do not need to 
make very long journeys every spring and au- 
tumn. Their migrations are comparatively 
short when undertaken at all. As a rule their 
flight is laboured, slow, and rather heavy — ^just 
the opposite from the wonderfully swift and 
graceful flight of the swallows. 
