Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/159

Rh be a gentleman and attains to being a gent. In dress it affects smartness and in manners gentility. In the company of ladies it becomes a masher. Nevertheless, I like the little Sparrow out of doors. But in this country you cannot keep it out of doors. It comes in and makes up its mind that it will have its nest in the corner of your ceiling. And when a Sparrow makes up its mind nothing will unmake it except the annihilation of that Sparrow. Its faithful spouse is always, and very strongly, of the same mind as itself. So they set to work to make a hole in the corner of the ceiling-cloth, and they tear and tug with an energy which leaves no room for failure. Then they begin to fetch hay. The quantity of hay which a couple of Sparrows will carry in a day is almost miraculous. Most of it tumbles down in their efforts to stuff it into the hole, for they always bring larger loads than they can manage. I remember a pair which made a hole directly over one of the pictures on my drawing-room wall, and I declare solemnly that you might have fed a horse on the hay which I removed daily and hourly from behind that picture. This savours of exaggeration, perhaps, but I mean a hack-victoria horse. At such times the House Sparrow requires an antidote, a "Gem Air-gun," or something of that sort. I once saw, with unfeigned satisfaction, a pair of Sparrows making their nest in the top of a street-lantern near to the Victoria Station. They had no idea that that lamp was lighted every night after they had gone to bed, and, when they arrived each morning and found yesterday's work reduced to ashes, they did no doubt what a brave Sparrow always does in such