THE SPARROWS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VII, Issue 638, 25 August 1882, Page 3

THE SPARROWS.

Our fruit nnd grain growers will no •doubt sympathise with tho following tumorous article from the Detroit Free Press : — "What sort of bird is this?"—" This is an English sparrow. He cannot carry off :a lamb liko an engle, nor is be provided •with teeth or claws like the tiger, but he leaves his mark all the same." " How did he get here ?—" A philanthropist brought him over from England." " Was he a philanthropist?"—" He was a cross between a lunatic and an idiot." What did he want to bring them to America for ?"—'' Because ho hated the country and wanted revenge. It wasn't enough for him that we have small-pox, yellow fever, cholera, floods, droughts, cyclones, forest fires*) and grasshopper plagues."—"What are the chief merits of the sparrow.?"— " llis beautiful voice and loveable nature. His song is so much sweeter than a file •rasping over cast iron, that people have died over hearing it." " How does he ■employ his time.?"—-" In screaming, fighting, and eating early and often." ■' Where does ho build his nest?"—ln -every nook and cranny of the houses, if he could have the use of a thousand trees, rent free, lie would turn his nose up at the offer. Hecotrdn't damage a tree any, but he can make it necessary to paint a house every month." "' Of what is his nest composed?''—Of everything he can handle, except old oyster cans and beer bottles." Does the hard hearted citizen ever destroy thc-i-e nests?— v He does. When his family clothes-line, or cross-bar, or long handed shovel is missing, be pulls, down a nest and recovers the lost article."' " What does the sparrow do then ?"— "* He rebuilds." " Cun he be discouraged ?"

—" ff his nest was pulled down fifteen or twenty thousand times he might commence to feel down-hearted, but.those who 'have routed him out five or six hundred times have not seen him even change • countenance." " What other birds does die agree with:?"—" The buzzard and the polecat, He is too proud to take tin with every stranger that comes along. Ho has ■ driven away our robins and bine birds, and Jarks and chickadees, and even the hens are looking for another opening." " Would it be wicked to kill one of these spar-,-rows ?"—"Awfully wicked. The philanthropists would raise such a howl that the -killer would have to skip the country. ißesides, you can't shoot 'em, they won't be poisoned, no one over traps one. A man down the Ohio thinks a blow with a barn door might fetch 'em, but it :is as yet an untiied experiment." This is all for -tills time. Let us now lay away out books and sit on the steps and listen to the ■ravishing melody of the -sparrow's evening eong.