Sparrows do not respect Congress, and take no notice of legislative enactments for their extirpation. Imported as an insect-eating treasure, they have turned out grain-devouring impostors, and presuming upon the affectionate sentiments of exiled Englishmen have become a veritable calamity, and practically are officially branded as "vermin." In New York and other cities, the townsfolk began by putting up nesting-boxes for the birds to build in, in the public gardens and on corners of buildings. But now, if they could, they would introduce a pestilence among them and exterminate the race. It is the same in Australia, and the man who "invented" the sparrow stands in the monument of public infamy only one niche lower than "the man who invented the rabbit." And "pity 'tis 'tis so." For the sparrow is not an unamiable fowl. The poet who blesses it "twittering forth its morning song, a brief but sweet domestic melody," went perhaps too far, for if there is one thing for which "the nightingale of our roofs" deserves persecution, it is the exasperating monotony of its soulless chirp, and thus it is that one feels inclined to echo all Prior's abuse of it:
"Begone! with flagging wings sit down On some old penthouse near the town; In brewers' stables peck thy grain, Then wash it down with puddled rain; And hear thy dirty offspring squall From bottles on a suburb wall."
But in spite of its monstrous impudence, or partly, perhaps, because of it, the sparrow is really a popular favourite. Of course, no one takes it very seriously. When the cat is seen on the lawn with a bird in its mouth, there is at first a thrill of indignation and horror, but when some one says, "It's only a sparrow," the indignation is greatly modified and the horror subsides. For though the cat may not catch a chaffinch without reprobation, she may fatten on sparrows without reproach.
Trying once to breed poultry, I found that ten sparrows to every fowl meant double expense in feeding, and as the sparrows were not starving, but only too lazy to go and find food in the fields, I had no compunction in "harrying" them, though I would not allow any one on the place to touch the nest of any other bird whatsoever. Not that sparrows care for persecution when it takes the form of pulling down their nests, for they seem to rejoice at the opportunity of beginning housekeeping all over again, and, as I have proved by experiment, will have started a new family in a new nest three days after the old nursery has been destroyed. What they detest is wire-netting of too fine a mesh for them to get through and the spectacle of grain scattered inside which they cannot reach. It is then that poor feeble man triumphs over the obstreperous sparrow and can exult over the birds as they hop, chirping round and round the impossible feast.