ilar to his own.

While seeds are more suitable for an elder bird they are altogether
too indigestible to be the food of nestlings. So when the sparrow
finds its nest full we know he must sally forth in search of
nourishment more simple of digestion. Now for a few weeks he searches
assiduously, catching insects and caterpillars of various kinds, and
feeds them to his young. This taste passes as his children grow older,
especially as shortly the seeds begin to ripen. Now is the time for
the sparrow to fatten. Now he is eating the food for which he was
really built. By the time the wheat is ripe there are sparrows enough
about to form quite a flock, and when these settle down in a wheat,
rye, or oats field and feed upon the grain, meanwhile shaking out upon
the ground perhaps as much as they eat, the farmer begins to realize
that the sparrow is not his friend.

When winter comes the struggle for existence among the birds is
intensified, and comparatively few of them dare face it. Most of our
birds betake themselves to less rigorous quarters, leaving to the
sparrow a comparatively small number of competitors for the diminished
supply of food. As long as the snow is off the ground the sparrows can
find sufficient sustenance. They gather themselves into groups and
sally out from the city into the open country. The immediate result is
that great quantities of weed seeds are seized upon by the English
sparrow, as, indeed, by every other finch which is with us in winter.
Perhaps we have not given the little fellow credit for the good he
does at this particular time, for the rest of the account truly does
not help him in our esteem.

There is a further direct advantage in the sparrow's sociability. One
robin may nest in the vines about your porch. If there were room for a
dozen, scarcely more than one would be likely to use it, because he
would drive away any other robin who attempted to share the
neighborhood with him. To the sparrow company is always in order.
While he may quarrel from morning until night with his fellow, it is a
sociable quarrel and neither would willingly forgo it. This union is
strength among birds, as with man. Every animal is safer from his
enemies when he can have the constant presence of others of his own
kind. The deer that stays in the herd is safer from the wolves. It is
only when the latter succeed in cutting out some weaker or less
sagacious animal that these carnivorous creatures succeed in tea