Kitabı oku: «In Touch with Nature: Tales and Sketches from the Life», sayfa 5
“We stayed at the same hotel, and next morning – and a delightful morning it was – as we sat together on the pine-clad hill, with the blue waters of the Loch shimmering in the sunshine far beneath us, and on every side the marvellous rocks and wondrous hills, we agreed to travel in each other’s company for the next three weeks at least.
“When I say that those three weeks got extended to six, it will readily be believed that we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. Of all romantic scenery it has ever been my luck in life to gaze upon, that of the ‘Winged Isle’ is by far and away the most enchanting. See Skye in summer, and you will have something to think about and dream about until your dying day.
“I was somewhat proud to be able to show my newly found friend all the wild beauties of the island, the mysterious caves among its rocks, the frowning glories of its mountains, the sylvan sweetness that hovers dream-like around bonnie Armadale, and the awesome sublimities of lonely Coruishk. I know Skye so well, and there was not a glen, a hill, a bleak moorland or one mile of surf-tormented beach, on which I could not cause to reappear the heroes and heroines of a bygone age. There was no attempt at effect in anything I said; I told but what I knew, I spoke but what I felt, and if I did sometimes warm to my subject or description, the warmth welled right up from the bottom of my heart.
“Every enjoyment must come to an end at last. I got a letter one morning – a long white service envelope contained it – which demanded my presence on the other side of the world.
“We were reclining on a wild-thyme scented knoll not far from the edge of a cliff, that went down a sheer five-hundred feet to the sea below. We could hear the boulders thundering on the beach, though we could not see them. Beyond this was the Minch, flaked with foam; it was a breezy day, and far away on the horizon the blue outline of the Harris hills.
“‘No,’ he said, in answer to a question of mine. ‘We will not hamper each other with a promise to correspond. This world is full of sad partings. We must bend to the inevitable. I’ll think of you though, sometimes, and Skye, and this lovely dog.’
“‘I have one of his puppies,’ I said, ‘he shall be yours.’
“The Franco-German war was over; even the demon of civilised warfare had been exorcised at last by blood and tears, and peace smiled sadly on the soil of France once more.
“I had been for a short time attached to a corps of German dragoons, in the capacity of correspondent. But there was little more for me to do now, only I think the officers, with whom I had got very friendly, wished me to see their reception at home, and I could not resist the temptation to march along with them. I have often been ‘homeward bound,’ but never saw before such genuine happiness as I now did. How they talked of the mothers, wives, sweethearts, and little ones they were soon again to see, and often too with a sigh and a manly tear or two about the comrades they left behind them under the green sod!
“Our mess was a very jolly one. Sometimes at night the wind rose and roared, causing our tents – we had a tent then – to flap like sails in a storm at sea. Or the rain would beat against it, until the canvas first sweated inside, then dropped water, then ran water, till we were drenched. But, whether drenched or dry, we always sang, oh! such rattling choruses. The villages we passed through had all we wanted to buy, the villagers often scowled, and I think they were usually glad to see our backs. But some fawned on us like whipped hounds for the sake of the money we spent. Yet I must say in justice that the Germans took no unfair advantage, and if any allusion was made to them as conquerors, they but laughed carelessly, muttered something about the fortunes of war, and changed the subject.
“I was riding along one morning early, when I saw several of our fellows on the brow of a hill looking back with some degree of interest, but trotting on all the same.
“I should have followed their example, but the mournful howling of a dog attracted my attention, and went straight to my very heart. So I rode up and over the hill.
“I was hardly prepared for what I saw. A beautiful black Newfoundland, whining pitifully beside what appeared to be the dead body of a man.
“I dismounted, and the dog came to meet me. He jumped and fawned on me, then rushed wildly back to the side of that prostrate form. But I stood as if one transfixed. I could not mistake those eyes. It was Neptune, that I had given – a seven months’ old puppy – to Hans Hegel three years before.
“And the poor fellow who lay before me with sadly gashed face, upturned to the morning sun, was Hegel himself.
“He lay on his sword, lay as he had fallen, and the absence of the coat, the sash-bound waist, and sleeve up-rolled, told to me the history of his trouble in a way there was no mistaking. He had fallen in a duel.
“But was he dead? No. For, soon after I had raised him in my arms, and poured a little cordial down his throat, he opened his eyes, gazed bewilderedly at me for a moment, then his hand tightened on mine and he smiled. He knew me.
“I should have liked some of those strange people who do not love dogs to have been present just then, to witness the looks of gratitude in poor Neptune’s eyes as he tenderly licked my hand with his soft tongue.
“My regiment went on: I stayed at the nearest village hostelry with Hans Hegel.
“When he was well enough he told me the story of the duel. So far the affair was unromantic enough, for there was not a lady in it. The quarrel had been forced upon him by a fire-eating Frenchman, and swords were drawn on a point of national honour.
“‘I owe my life to you,’ Hegel said.
“‘You owe your life,’ I replied, ‘to Heaven and that faithful dog.’”
“And now, Sir Stranger,” I said as I concluded my story, “we look to you.”
“Well,” said the cyclist, “as you gave a name to your tale, I daresay I must follow suit. Your tale had a dog in it. Mine has a horse, and as the horse’s name was Doddie, so I call my story.”
Chapter Nine.
Old Doddie; the Cyclist’s Story
“Thro’out the annals of the land,
Tho’ he may hold himself the least,
That man I honour and revere,
Who, without favour, without fear,
In the great city dares to stand
The friend of every friendless beast.”
Longfellow.
“I had dismounted to light my tricycle lamps, and to ‘oil up,’ previously to accomplishing the last part of my day’s ride – a good fifteen miles, through a rough and very lonely bit of country on the borders of North Wales. I had already ridden somewhat over thirty-five miles that day, and the roads were sticky, and in many parts stony, for it was very early in the spring, and the metal that had been put down a month or two before had not yet smoothed down.
“I was not sorry, therefore, to stretch my legs a little and gaze at the sky. The sun had set about an hour before, and the heavens in the south-west were lit up with most singular beauty of tinting. There was nothing stern or harsh about the colouring – no saturnian glare, no sulphureous glow, like what was so often seen during the winter of 1883-84. High up, the sky there was of a palish blue; in that blue shone a solitary star with wonderful brilliancy. Beneath this was pale saffron-yellow. Lower down still this pure yellow melted gradually into a soft tint of carmine, while between that and the horizon was a bar of misty steel-grey.
“‘How lovely! – how inexpressibly lovely!’ I couldn’t help saying to myself, half aloud.
“‘It is indeed beautiful!’ said a voice close by my elbow that made me start and look round. ‘But it bodes no good. You couldn’t see me coming,’ he said, smiling, ‘because I was under the shadow of the hawthorn hedge; and you couldn’t hear me, because I walked on the grass.’
“‘And what did you come for?’ I inquired. ‘But stop,’ I added, before he could answer my question; ‘I have no right to ask you. The road is free to both of us.’
“‘But I’m not on a journey,’ he replied, ‘so I will answer. My house is in here, behind that hedge, though you can’t see it, and there is not another for the next ten miles. You are seventeen miles from L – , where, I presume, you are going. Had you not better come in and rest a bit? The moon rises at eight to-night.’
“‘You are really very kind,’ I said; ‘but my being so far from home makes hurry all the more necessary. I’ll light my lamps and be off.’
“‘As you please,’ he said carelessly.
“Just then I discovered, very much to my astonishment – for I pride myself on the perfectness of my outfit while on the road – that my match-box was empty.
“‘I’ll follow you, thanks,’ I said, ‘and borrow a few matches from you.’
“‘Come on, then,’ said my would-be host pleasantly; and trundling my cycle in front of me, I followed him.
“He was a man apparently about forty – square-shouldered, tall, straight, and manly-looking. He did not look a farmer, but he evidently was, from the appearance of his place – and a farmer, too, of sporting proclivities.
“A boy was drawing water from a deep well; a fine old hunter stood by watching the boy – a dark bay horse, whose hollow temples and somewhat drooping under-lip gave proofs of age. A couple of beautiful setter dogs came careering up to meet their master, and received a fond caress. The old horse left the boy at the well and ambled up, then, laying his head on my host’s shoulder, nickered low but kindly.
“‘Bless his good old heart! Has he had his supper?’
“My heart warmed to a man who could speak thus kindly to a dumb brute.
“‘You love that horse, evidently,’ I said.
“‘I do,’ was the reply. ‘I have good cause to. Down, Doddie – down on your knees to this gentleman.’
“Doddie, as he called him, did at once what he was told to, and there remained while I smoothed his ears and caressed him on the brow.
“‘Trot off now, Doddie, and have a drink.’
“And away went Doddie.
“I was not sorry to rest awhile; the fireside was so pleasant, and the room all so cheerful. The hostess, a fragile little fair-haired body, who must have been bewitchingly pretty a few years back, and who did not look a bit like a fanner’s wife, brought in a tray laden with bread, cheese, and butter, and a mug of home-brewed beer.
“To have refused partaking of this cheer would have been most unmannerly. I did justice to it, therefore, and we soon got quite friendly. Two hours passed very quickly indeed; then I was startled to hear the wind howling in the chimney, and the rain beating against the panes.
“‘I knew it was coming,’ said my host, whose name, I found, was Morris. ‘That is one reason I asked you in; the other was,’ – here he smiled very pleasantly – ‘a selfish one – I don’t have a talk with a gentleman once in a month. Mary, fill our mugs again – it’s only home-brewed, sir – and I’ll tell the gentleman why we love old Doddie so.’
“Mary sat by the fire quietly knitting, while Mr Morris told me the following particulars of old Doddie.
“‘Been a rover all my life,’ he began, ‘till three years ago, when Mary’s father brought us home here to his native place, bought this little farm for us, then died – poor old soul! He’d been a farmer out in Mexico, but didn’t save much. Like myself, he seemed but to live to prove the truth of the proverb that a rolling stone never gathers moss. But he was never such a rolling stone as I, sir. Bless you! no. I’ve been everything – Oxford graduate, coffee-planter, actor, soldier, trapper, miner, ne’er-do-weel. Eh, Mary?’
“Mary merely smiled, but she gave him one kindly glance that spoke volumes.
“‘Well, sir, my story – and it is short enough I mean to make it – commences, anyhow, in my trapper days, and there are two things it proves: the first is, that even a redskin can be grateful; and the second is, that Tom Morris has been a lucky dog, and drawn, at all events, one trump card in his day.
“‘I was living in a log hut in one of the wildest parts of the north-west of Mexico, and had been for nearly a year. The hut didn’t belong to me. There was nobody in it but a half-starved dog when I came upon it, so I just took quiet possession; but the owner never returned, and from stains of a very suspicions colour all about the doorway, I guessed he had been killed and robbed by the Indians.
“‘I had an idea there was gold somewhere thereabout. I had this idea from the very first, and I wasn’t altogether wrong. I found enough to cause me to stay on and on. I spent most of my time prospecting among the hills, the forests, and the canons, killing enough game and enough fish to keep me alive, with the help of a few sweet potatoes that grew in a patch close by the hut.
“‘I found gold, but I didn’t make a pile. But in my wanderings I came across the cattle ranche that belonged to Mary’s poor old father here. I was surprised to find a white man so far away from civilisation. But Mr Ellis knew what he was about. There was the river not far away, and the forest adjoining, and this river was navigable all the way down to the town of C – , some sixty or seventy miles. At C – was a splendid market for skins and grain. Mr Ellis paid nothing for his cattle, and very little for the labour of farming, and he had no rent to pay, so on the whole I didn’t blame him for staying where he did. He had only one companion, and that was his little daughter Mary here, and his servants, men and women, numbered about ten in all.
“‘The farm buildings must have been a kind of an outpost at one time, when the Indians and the States were hard at it, for they were completely surrounded with a log rampart and a ditch. There had been a drawbridge and a gate, but it was now a solid affair of stone. But over his bridge, please remember, lay the only road into Fort Ellis farmhouse.
“‘Although the fort was twenty miles ’cross country, and more than forty by the regular road, I found myself very often indeed at the farm, and poor Mr Ellis – heigho! he is dead and gone – and I got very friendly indeed.
“‘And Mary and I – ah! well, sir, you cannot wonder that, thrown together thus, and in so wild a country, we got very fond of each other indeed.
“‘But to proceed. The Indians were never very friendly to the white man. They bore a grudge against him – a grudge born, sir, of many and many a broken treaty. So they were not to be depended on even when the hatchet was buried.
“‘There came to my hut, sir, one summer’s day, crawling painfully on bands and knees, an Indian of the tribe I am talking about. He had been bitten by a snake – a moccasin, if my memory served me aright. I took him in out of the sun, and gave him nearly all the aqua ardiente I had in the hut. For days he lay like a dead thing, and I was beginning to think about where I’d bury him, when he opened his eyes and spoke. I gave him the aqua ardiente now in teaspoonfuls. I nursed him almost day and night, hardly ever leaving him. But he was on his feet and well again at last, and if ever tears were in a redskin’s eyes, they were in his when he bade me good-by. I hadn’t been much at the fort during the redskin’s illness, and they were getting alarmed about me, when one forenoon Doddie and I came clattering over the drawbridge.
“‘A few months flew by so quickly, sir, because I was in love, you know; and one evening in autumn the dog barked; next moment my redskin stood before me with a finger on his lip.
“‘Hist!’ he said; and I drew him into the hut.
“‘O! sir, sir! Tom Morris was a madman when he was informed by that poor friendly redskin that at twelve that night the fort would be attacked by a wandering tribe of redskins, every one murdered save Mary, who was to be dragged off into captivity.
“‘I thanked the Indian, blessed him, then hurried to the stable and brought Doddie out. The saddle was broken; it must be a bare-back ride. There was time if we met no accident. It was now eight o’clock, and I mounted, waving adieu to the Indian, and rode away eastwards in the direction of the fort. In an hour I was at the river. Here the main road branched away round among the mountains. There was no time to take that. My way lay across the ford and through the forest, cutting off a long bend or elbow of the river, and coming out at another ford, within a mile of Ellis Fort and Farm.
“‘I headed Doddie for the stream, and we were soon over. I knew the path, and the moon was up, making everything as light as day.
“‘But look ahead! The glare was never the moon’s light. Alas! no, sir; it was fire. The forest was in flames. I think to this day it was done by the savages to intercept me. In half an hour more, sir, the flames were licking the grass within ten yards of our pathway, and running in tongues up the bark of the trees.
“‘Doddie neighed in fright, reared, and I was thrown. Next moment I was alone in the burning forest. To fly from the fire was impossible. I threw myself on my face in despair. O! the agony of those few minutes! But even then I believe I thought more of poor Mary and her father than of my own wretched end.
“‘All at once I started to my feet, for a soft nose had nudged me on the arm. It was Doddie, and in an instant we were flying again through the forest. I think we might have made the ford, but my horse now seemed to lose all control of himself, and I of the horse, for the bridle broke.
“‘Doddie made for the river above this ford, and took a desperate leap into the deep water. But he was quieter now, and it was easy to head him down the stream, and at last we were once again on terra firma, with the broad river between us and the fire.
“‘We blew up the bridge and barricaded the gate immediately on my arrival. And not a whit too soon, for half an hour afterwards the fort was surrounded by howling savages.
“‘Our relief came next evening, in the shape of mounted soldiers; and I feel sure, sir, that it was that grateful Indian who sent them.’
“I have, reader, given a mere epitome of my host’s story, which was altogether interesting and took quite an hour to tell. By the time it was finished, the squall had blown over; the moon shone out bright and clear over the hills, and bidding Mr Morris a kindly ‘good-night,’ I mounted my cycle and resumed my journey.
“But I assure you I did not go until I had patted poor old Doddie on the nose, and given him a lunch biscuit from my cyclist’s wallet.”
The stranger started up as soon as he had finished.
“I must be early on the road,” he said; “and so I suppose must you.”
“Good-night all.”
“Good-night: sound sleep!”
An hour afterwards we were all enjoying that sound repose that only the just, and gipsies, ever know.
Chapter Ten.
Spare the Sparrow
“Ye slay them! and wherefore? For the gain
Of a scant handful, more or less, of wheat.
Or rye, or barley, or some other grain.”
On this grand gipsy-tour of ours we had reason to be thankful every day for a good many things. First and foremost, that our horses were so sturdy, strong, and willing; that the great caravan itself was so comfortable, and the smaller one so snug, and both so delightfully and artistically fitted up, that they looked more like the saloon and cabin of some beautiful yacht than the homes of amateur gipsies.
It took us a whole month to get across the borders and well into bonnie Scotland. But a more pleasant month I for one never spent before nor since. We took it easy. We were determined to study the otium cum dignitate and dolce far niente, and at the end of this month it would have been difficult to say which of us was the hardier or jollier. The horses were sleek and fat, Hurricane Bob spent most of his time either lying among rugs on the coupé with the children, or tumbling on the daisied sward, while the cat did nothing but sing and look complacent. We human beings were so happy, we could even afford to laugh and be gay when thunders rolled, when gales of wind blew and rocked the caravan as if she had been a ship at sea, or when the rain came down in torrents.
Maggie May had already ceased to be an invalid, and Ida had got as brown as if she really were a true-born Romany-Rye.
No, we never hurried the horses. For there was so much to be seen, fresh scenery at every turn of the road, beautiful wild flowers to be gathered to fill the vases. The children at lunch-time even made great garlands of them, and hung them round the horses’ necks.
Of course the village children always took us for a show, and ran out to meet and cheer us, but most grown-up folks took us simply for what we were – a party on a pleasant summer tour.
Mysie, strange to say, although she often stopped out of doors all night, was always back in good time for the start in the morning.
I fear she proved a great enemy to the birds.
One evening she brought into the tent a beautifully plumaged cock-sparrow.
Now I am very fond of sparrows. They are historical birds, and birds of Bible times, so I relieved Mysie of her poor prisoner, and let it flutter away.
We then had some talk about sparrows, and I embody my ideas of them in the following sketch.
The British Sparrow: a study in ornithology.
The sparrow, although it undoubtedly belongs to the great natural family Fringillidae, which includes among its members the weavers and whydah birds, the linnet, the goldfinch, and bullfinch, to say nothing of the canary itself, can hardly be said to rank with the aristocracy of the bird world. Quite the reverse; in fact, the Passer domesticus is a bird of low life. He is by no means a humble bird, however. There is nothing at all of the Uriah Heep about my little friend; he has quite as good an opinion of himself as any feathered biped need to have. Yet if it be possible for some classes of birds to look with disdain on the behaviour and doings of others, sparrows are surely so treated by their betters. And no wonder, for they are neither elegant in shape nor appearance; they do not dress well either in winter or in summer; it is not their lot to be arrayed in scarlet or in gold, but in humble brown and russet grey. So much for the appearance of the bird.
In manners and in deportment sparrows are far beneath bon ton; their knowledge of music is exceedingly limited, their appreciation of sweet sounds conspicuous only by its absence – why, they think nothing of interrupting even the nightingale in his song – and if any bird can be said to talk Billingsgate, those birds are sparrows. Should any one doubt the truth of my last statement, let him go and listen for one minute to the wrangling linguamachy that goes on of an evening after sunset, as they are retiring to roost in a tree.
Yet, for all this, many of the tricks and manners of these plebeian birds are well worth watching, and often highly amusing.
It is not, however, merely to amuse the reader that I now write, but quite as much in behalf of the bird itself. For of late years the character of the British sparrow has been aspersed in this country, but more particularly abroad; and I think he ought to have a fair and impartial trial. I therefore stand forward, not, mind you, as the champion, but the counsel both for and against the prisoner at the bar – the said Passer domesticus, who, on this occasion, is not arraigned for the murder of cock-robin, but for a far more heinous offence, namely, that of constituting himself a common nuisance, and doing more harm than good in the world.
For some years back I have had many – nay, but constant – opportunities for studying the habits of sparrows and many other kinds of birds, and I am not unobservant. I live in one of the prettiest and leafiest nooks of tree-clad Berkshire. The village that adjoins me nestles among trees; the gardens all about the houses are masses of shrubbery and flowers; stone fences are utterly unknown; there are hedges everywhere. Our trees are wide-spreading oaks and planes, drooping acacias, leafy lindens, elm, ash, willow, poplar, and what not.
Up the lordly line of splendid poplar-trees that bound my cosy little paddock the green ivy grows, and here sparrows dwell in hundreds. I do not shoot my wild birds, nor do my children chase and frighten them. Linnets build every year in the laurels close by the dog-kennel: robins feed with the dogs, and some older sparrows know names that we have given them, and come to be fed. No need to hang up boxes for them to build in – we live in the bush; but in summer-time they have a bath on the back lawn, and it is a sight to see them in the early morning. Thrushes, blackbirds, finches, sparrows, starlings – they all agree as well as if they had learned Watts’ hymns, and laid them all to heart. More about my birds another day – perhaps. One starling, however, I must mention here; he comes down every sunny morning, with his wife; he sends her in to bathe and splash; he sits on the edge of the bath and receives the drops – that is all the bath he takes. She is a dutiful wife.
The plumage of the domestic sparrow is almost too well known to need description. In one of the very excellent publications of Messrs Cassell and Co. – viz, “Familiar Wild Birds” – the following remarks occur: —
“The difference in the appearance of the plumage of a country sparrow, as compared with his town-bred cousin, would be hardly imagined, the fresh bright plumage of the one displaying the prettily marked black, white, and brown, whilst smoke and dirt hide the beauty of the town sparrow, so that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the sex at a glance. The male, however, has a brilliant black throat, and is otherwise more determined in colour, the hen being especially deficient in the bright brown of the wings and the chocolate mark over the eyes.”
This is quite true. The author might have added, however, that the black bib which the male sparrow wears is seldom perfect until June, and the birds pair and build long before they have acquired their summer dresses. They are in such a hurry that they do not wait for their wedding-garments.
Now, this is just the place to mention a fact that I have proved again and again, to my own satisfaction at all events. It is this: sparrows are polygamous; house-sparrows are undoubtedly so, and I believe also so are their first cousins, who build in trees. I myself was reared in the woods and wilds of Scotland, and, like most boys, was fond of bird-nesting. It often used to strike us lads as strange that differently marked eggs were found in the same sparrow’s nest. We did not suspect then that these were laid by different birds. Last week a family quarrel arose among some sparrows in the large wistaria that covers the front of my cottage, and during the row an immense hammock of a double nest was knocked down. When I say a double nest I mean two nests joined in one – a kind of a “butt and a ben,” only with separate doors. One nest was empty – only clean, well-lined, and ready for use. The other contained four eggs – two pairs. They have the distinctive colouring and markings of ordinary sparrow’s eggs, but each pair is different, and the gentleman sparrow who owned that semi-detached cottage has two wives; they have built another and private residence some yards from the old site, and it is to be hoped will live happy ever afterwards.
I have a sparrow who answers to the name of “Weekie,” and who comes to call. This sparrow has three wives.
In many ways he is a remarkable bird. For several winters he has slept on the same rose-twig close under the verandah, with his wives – at first he had but two – not far from him. I used to watch Weekie from a top window sending his wives to roost just at sunset and before he retired himself. He would perch himself on the top of a tall cypress-tree and call them, turning his head this way and that as he hailed them, evidently not knowing from what direction they would come. But they always did come, and after some friendly remonstrance went to roost. About ten minutes after Weekie would give himself a little grateful shake, and hop in under the verandah to his favourite twig.
It was Weekie who first taught me that sparrows build for themselves little shelter-nests – any person in the country who takes the trouble to study these birds can prove to his own satisfaction that such is the case. It is only, however, in frosty weather that the sparrows take the trouble to erect these nests of convenience.
Some two or three years ago we had a very severe frost. During the first day or two I observed straws lying about the verandah; then I noticed that Weekie brought a straw with him at night, and on taking the lamp out to look at him – Weekie meanwhile looking down with one wondering bead of an eye – I noticed that he had his straw over his shoulder. Well, there couldn’t have been much comfort in this, but it was a hint to his two wives, and sure enough they took it, and I saw them building a nest of moss and straw, not larger than half a goose’s egg, around and under Weekie’s twig – not above, because there the verandah sheltered him. Weekie was happy now, I suppose, and warm as to his toes. Weekie’s wives are dutiful wives, but mark this: they themselves had no shelter-nests, and all through the terrible frost-spell they cowered by night within a foot or two of their lord and master – but on bare twigs.
I notice now that these shelter-nests are quite common. A cock-sparrow slept in one last winter in the great Gloire de Dijon rose-tree that covers the northern wall of my stable; but this was built above the perching-twig – it was, in fact, a little arbour.
When they don’t build shelter-nests, sparrows crouch at night under eaves, in ivy thickets, in old nests, and in the holes of trees, which they sometimes line.
The great work of the year – building and bringing forth their young – among sparrows commences early in March, or much sooner, if the weather be fine. But long before this married sparrows who have determined upon a change of residence, and bachelor sparrows who intend to set up for themselves when summer comes, go prospecting around, popping into holes, examining eaves, and chimneys, and ivied trees.
The former take their wives with them, whom they seem to consult and try their best to please, often in vain, for the female sparrow appears to derive a genuine pleasure from house-hunting, and keeps it up as long as possible – till probably the warm weather comes upon them all at once, and they are fain to settle down anywhere.
