NOW BOYS HEAD THIS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1182, 23 October 1882, Page 2 (Supplement)

NOW BOYS HEAD THIS.

— , What sori of a bird is ibis''’ This is an English sparrow. He cannot carry a lamb like an eagle, nor is he provided with teeth and 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 Innatic and an idiot.” “ What did he want to bring them to America for?” “Because he hated the country and wanted rsvenge. 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' ?” “ His beautiful voice and lovable nature. His song is so much sweeter than a file rasping over caM-iron, Hint people have died after hearing it.” “How does he employ his lime?” “ In screaming, fighting and eating, early and often.” “ Where does he build his nest ?” “In every nook and cranny of the houses. If he could have the use of a thousand trees rent free, he would turn his nose up at the offer. He couldn’t damage a tree very much, but be can make it necessary to paint a house every month.” “Of what is his nest 0 imposed?” “Of everything he can handle, except old oyster cans and beer bottles." “ Does the hard-hearted citizen eVer destroy those nests ?” '■ He does. When his family clothesline, or cross-bar, or long-handle shovel is missing, he pulls down a nest and recovers the lost article.” “ What does the sparrow do then ?” ‘‘ He rebuilds.” “ Can he be discouraged ?" "If 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 oven change countenance.” “What other birds does he agree with ?" “ The buzzard and the polecat. He is too proud to take up with every stranger that comes along. He has driven away our robins and blue-bit ds, and larks and chickadees, and even the hens are looking for another opening.” “ Would it be wicked to kill one of these sparrows F” “ Awfully wicked. The philanthrophists would raise such a howl that the killer would have to skip the country. Besides you can't shoot 'em, they can't be poisoned, and no one ever trapped one A man down the Ohio thinks a blow with a barndoor might fetch 'em, but it is as yet an untried experiment.” This is'all for this time. Lot us now lay awav our books ; sit on the steps and listen to the ravishing melody of the sparrow's evening song.—“ Detroit Free Press,"