MY work necessitated long hours in London, and I used to bless the sparrows; I was never tired of watching them. They lifted my mind from dusty pavements and the smell of motor traffic. A favourite place to see them was a garden adjoining a church in Gracechurch Street; another was by the fountains of Trafalgar Square. About the time of harvest in the country, for which I pined, I used to notice an absence of the winged urchins. Where before a noisy, squabbling party congregated in the park or near the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, in August a solitary couple or two hopped quietly. These, I imagined, had not answered the call that came to their dingy brethren, the same call that came to the weary Londoner at that period of the year.
The sparrows go into the country. Where the corn is cut and shocked you will see them in vast flocks, searching in the stubble or openly robbing the ripe ears. It is no uncommon thing to observe a thousand or more in one field. And perhaps as you watch a swooping hawk will flash over the hedgerow, the cloud will arise, chattering in terror; one miserable victim will be seized and carried swiftly away. Almost before the last floating feather has drifted to the ground the flock will be back, greedy for the golden grains. Perhaps there is some deep philosophy among the wild creatures, for immediately the danger of death is past they have forgotten it, and continue to live every moment in complete happiness.
Male chaffinches and other finches often join the trippers. So ready are sparrows to imitate, or perhaps to return to natural conditions long since abandoned in the city, that after a few pastoral days their chirps become sweeter, resembling the silvery spink spink of their gay cousins.
The sparrow has the power to produce sweet notes, but in the rush of a big city he has become careless regarding his personal appearance, his song, and the construction of nest.
About the second week of September the bird trippers come back, their voices clearer and their feathers sprucer. After a while, however, they return to their old habits, quarrelsome and untidy as before.