In Touch with Nature: Tales and Sketches from the Life

Now there are some things about sparrows that I confess I cannot quite understand. Knowing that they are often bigamists, sometimes polygamists, I am never surprised to see two or three hens helping a cock to build the family nest; but when I notice, as I have frequently done, a sparrow who has only one wife being assisted in the construction of his domicile by another gentleman sparrow, what am I to think? Who, I want to know, is the other fellow who drops round of a forenoon in a friendly kind of way with a weed in his mouth, and even gets inside and “chins” the nest. Is he a brother-in-law, or a father-in-law, or the son by a former marriage, or what? I give it up, but there is the fact, and “Facts are chiels that winna ding.”

It may not be generally known that there are bachelor sparrows, who remain bachelors all the summer from choice, and old-maid sparrows who are obliged to be so, and who sometimes build nests and sit by them looking disconsolate enough, sighing and singing “po-eete” for the poet who never comes.

Here is an anecdote with a little mystery about it that the reader may possibly be able to unravel, for I can’t. It is a little tragedy in one act, and must have been a very painful one to the principals. My splendid Newfoundland, Hurricane Bob, came down to my garden wigwam one forenoon last spring. He was whining and apparently in great distress of mind.

“Come on up here with me, master,” he said, “there are some strange goings on at the front lawn.”

I followed him, and could soon hear the pitiful cries of a sparrow, up near a spout that comes out from under the wooden eave of the tallest gable of the cottage. The dog pointed up there, continuing to whine as he did so, and evidently in grief because he couldn’t fly.

It was not long before I mastered the whole facts of the case. They were as follows: – Close by the funnel-shaped mouth of the descending spout, and supported by some branches of the wistaria, a pair of sparrows had built in the previous spring and raised several broods. It was February now, and they had come round prospecting – impressed doubtless by old associations – to see if the same nest could not be refitted, and thus do duty again. Full of excitement, the cock bird had hopped down between the woodwork of the eave and the spout, and seeing a crack about half an inch wide beneath, had attempted to come out there. He got his head through and one wing, but there he had stuck.

It was quite affecting to witness the agony and perturbation displayed by the hen bird – the poor imprisoned cock did nothing but struggle and flutter – her cries were pitiful, and every now and then she would seize her spouse by head or by wing and try to pull him through.

Meanwhile, on a twig of wistaria not a yard away sat another cock-sparrow, an interested but inactive spectator. He simply looked on, and never volunteered either assistance or a suggestion.

As soon as I could procure a ladder long enough to get up, I went to the rescue, but the poor bird’s head had drooped – he was dead; and so firmly fixed in the crack that I could neither drag him through nor push him back. The hen sparrow and the strange cock sat looking at me some little way off, but the former after this made no further attempt to relieve the cock bird. He was no more, and she must have known it. But who the mystery was the strange cock – the impassive spectator? Was he father, brother, or, dear me! was he a former lover – a rival? Did he sit there mocking the dying agony of the other bird? Did he address him thus: – “You’re booked, old man. You may kick and flutter as much as you please. I tell you you are as good as dead already. When you are gone I’ll hop into your place. This nest will suit us nicely. Us, I say, d’ye hear? It will suit us, and we will soon forget you. Good-by, old man, keep up your pecker.”

I would have torn down the old nest, but I really was curious to know if the dead sparrow’s widow would wed again, and take up house there. Surely she would never bear to pop out and in at the doorway of that nest, with the skeleton of her late lamented husband hanging out through the crack. I left the nest for a month or two, then tore it down, but no birds have ever built there since.

There are more hen than cock-sparrows, and this may account for the prevalence of polygamism in the community. As to old-maid sparrows, I have assuredly often known nests built by hens alone, but am willing to admit that these hens may be relicts, some accident may have happened to the husband. However, it is a fact that there are plenty of bachelor sparrows, who live a free and easy life all the summer, and never dream of becoming Benedicts; you see them in the gardens, and you meet them out in the fields, and they are always in company with other male sparrows of their own way of thinking.

Now every one who lives in the country is perfectly familiar with those little disturbances that often arise all of a sudden among sparrows, when about half a dozen go flying into a bush together, squabbling, bickering, and fighting with fearful ferocity. Some books gravely tell us that these squabbles are in reality courts-martial being held on some erring brother or sister of this genus Passer. I never took this for granted, and for three or four summers I have used my best endeavours to get at the true explanation of the matter, and I am satisfied they are caused by differences of opinion between Benedict and bachelor sparrows, resulting in a match “’twixt married and single,” a free fight, in which the females take part.

Female sparrows often fight most viciously together from bush to bush, but preferably on the ground. I have often seen a stand-up battle between the two wives of a bigamist sparrow. He himself would simply stand about a yard off, and look on.

“It’s no good interfering,” the cock appears to think; “it is a sad state of affairs to be sure, but what can a fellow do? I must try to manage matters differently another year.”

Sparrows may keep the same mates from year to year, and so they may arrange for pairing as early as November or December the year before, flying about with their coming queens, and roosting near them at night. But considering the number of these birds that are killed every year – by our bold sparrow-club men for example, by misguided gardeners, and by bucolic louts who net them in the ivy after nightfall for the purpose of supplying matches with the needed birds – considering the quantities of them that cats and hawks kill, and the numbers that die from frost and starvation, to say nothing of the young birds of last season, the mating time is a very busy one indeed. The cocks are then as full of fight as an Irishman on a fair day, and the hens – well they simply sit and look on.

“None but the brave deserve the fair,” they seem to say to themselves, “and it is certainly very gratifying to one’s self-esteem and respect to know that all these sanguinary battles now raging round the rose-trees and in under the laurel-bushes are about us.”

Here are a few notes I took some months ago: – A bright spring morning in March. Sunshine on the red brick walls of our cottage, sunshine on the wistaria. Wistaria not in blossom yet. – N.B. Blossom comes before leaves, though it is now covered with long soft downy buds, tipped with a suspicion of mauve. The forenoon is quite warm, delightful to be out of doors. Yet at seven o’clock there was hoar-frost on the ground, and thin ice on the dogs’ water. The sparrows are unusually lively, and bickering constantly – especially the cocks. Yonder a fight has commenced, just under the eave; it rages there a few moments, then down tumble the belligerents from a height of twenty feet, holding viciously on to each other’s jaws all the while with the ferocity of bulldogs. Now they struggle together on the lawn, lunging and pecking, and wrestling with wings outspread and legs everywhere. There are beads of blood about their eyes, and tiny drops on the grass. What a serious matter it seems! Death or victory! they think and care for nothing else. I believe I could steal up and put my hat over the pair of them. “England’s difficulty,” says my Persian cat, creeping up, “is Ireland’s opportunity.” No you won’t, puss. Go away at once, or I’ll call for Collie to you.

But see, one sparrow has triumphed. Vae Victis! He chases the conquered and breathless bird from bush to bush, till his own lungs give out, and he returns open-mouthed but glorious, and flies up to the tree where sits the cosy wee hen that all the row has been about. He is going to say something or make a proposal of some kind, when back flies the conquered cock, and the battle is renewed with double vigour. This is a longer fight than last, but victory once more declares itself on the side of the former champion, and back he flies again to the trysting twig – to find what? Why, another fellow who has been actually taking a mean advantage of his absence in the battle-field, and pruning his feathers in front of his hen. There is another fight there and then, and perhaps there may be many more to come. But in the end all things will be well, and the fittest survive.

Round the corner are a pair of birds already matched and mated; they are at peace with all the world, and can afford to sit quietly on their twigs and witness the fighting and the fun.

The cocks this lovely morning seem striving to do all they can to make themselves conspicuous. The hens, on the other hand, sit quietly on their twigs, their morsels of tails at an angle of about 45 degrees, their little beaks in the air, and their feathers all balled out to catch the sunshine.

To one of these independent little mites a black bib sidles up. He addresses her in wretchedly bad grammar, but what can you expect of a sparrow?

“It’s you and me this season, ain’t it?” he says.

She tosses her bill higher in air than it was before, as she replies —

“Oh dear no, sir. I couldn’t think of changing my state.”

“Here, you!” cries another black bib, hopping on to the same twig, “it’s you and me, if you please.”

Then another fearful fight begins between the two black bibs.

And so the fun goes on.

But this I have observed: Before mating actually takes place the male sparrow often gives the female a thrashing. Well, perhaps it is as well they should have their little differences out before marriage instead of after. Quien Sabe?

Early in June my sparrows may be seen hopping or flying about with sprays of blue forget-me-not in their bills. A lady visitor at my house was much struck with seeing this last summer.

“Whatever do they carry flowers for?” she asked laughingly; “your sparrows are more refined in their tastes than any birds I ever even read of.”

But the explanation is simple enough. They cut and carry away the sprays of forget-me-not for sake of the seeds that are already half ripe at the lower end of them.

A little innocent girl asked me the same question, her pretty eyes filled with sweet surprise, and I wickedly replied, “There is going to be a grand fête of some kind to-day among my sparrows, and they are going to decorate their nests.” She simply answered, “Oh!” but she looked believing.

In this short paper I have not said one-half of what I should wish to say about these interesting and independent wee birds that follow and take up their abode with mankind wheresoever he goes in the wide world, but I hope I have said enough to gain for sparrows a little more consideration and a little less cruelty than they generally meet with.

“But they are so destructive?” Yes, I knew some one would say that. Yet I maintain that they do far more good than harm in the world. If space were given me I could prove this. Meanwhile here is an extract from Land and Water, which is well worth reading and considering: —

“What the swallow tribe do in killing innumerable flies in country parks, the sparrow does to some extent in the gardens and squares of London, especially in its more immediate suburbs. All the sparrows have got nests, many containing callow young, a few ‘flyers,’ and some are still sitting on the eggs. An old sparrow might be seen perched on the top of a house, and presently with a graceful motion the bird ‘rises to a passing fly’ and secures the morsel. If the bird or birds had got young in the water-spout hard by, or in the hole often left by builders missing a brick at the end of a row of houses, in ivy, or in the thick foliage of the Virginia creeper, the young birds get the ‘catch.’ Besides this fly-catching, I have noticed for the last few weeks the sparrows working in every evergreen bush, also in jessamines, in lilac-trees, and especially in the crevices of old walls, in search of spiders, earwigs, green-fly, daddy long-legs, etc. The adult birds seem to prefer this wall and bush ‘food’ more than crumbs of bread regularly thrown out for them, except where they have got a nestful of hungry youngsters, and then the latter get some of both. But how hard the sparrows work, and the starlings too!”

Now let us go a little farther from home. Some years ago the English sparrow was introduced into that country of free institutions called the United States. The sparrow has certainly made himself at home there. He has increased and multiplied a millionfold, and now America wants to “Extirpate the vipers.”

But the Americans do not always know what is good for them. Example: They have slain all their big game (where will you find a herd of wild buffalo now?), they have killed nearly all their birds, and well-nigh cut down their last bit of genuine forest.

Yes, the sparrow makes itself at home in America. Some months ago I was sitting in one of the beautiful open squares in New York. The sparrows were plentiful enough all about and enjoyed themselves very much, especially in flying through the playing fountains; it must be delightful to take a bath on the wing. A tall Yankee was sitting near me with outstretched legs. A sparrow alighted on the toe of his boot; he wore Number 10’s. He eyed it curiously and critically. I smiled.

“A cheeky bird,” I couldn’t help remarking.

“Yes, sir,” was the reply, “but – it’s British. That accounts.”

I “dried up” after that.

But even in America the British sparrow has made a few friends, as the following extract from Forest and Stream will prove: —

“A Good Word for the Sparrows. – I send you by this mail a lot of leaves of the maple growing in front of my office, which when gathered were literally covered with insects. What attracted my attention to them was the busy action of some two dozen English sparrows, hopping here and there in the tree, peering under the leaves, and savagely feeding on something. An inspection revealed the cause of their eagerness, and the cause of the early shedding of the leaves. Examine these vermin and tell us what they are. The sparrows were so busy they would scarcely keep out of the reach of my hand. I called the attention of several gentlemen, who watched them for some time. This proves (to me) the insectivorous habits of the English sparrow.”

Sparrows are treated with systematic cruelty by many in this country; they are trapped and shot wholesale and at all seasons, and not only are their nests torn down with the eggs in them, but even when filled with young, and these are allowed to expire – mere little naked things – on the ground.

Sparrow matches are a disgrace to our country, and to those who engage in them. Every reader will surely admit this much. As for members of sparrow clubs, I never saw one, and Heaven forbid I ever may.

Chapter Eleven.

On the Breezy Cliff-Top. – Our “Hoggie.”

“Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me
As I gaze upon the sea!
All the old romantic legends —
All my dreams come back to me.”