The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-06-15
AN AsTOUNDED SPARROW.
1t TicISled the RhinOceros's Nose,
and the Great Beast sneezed.

1t TicISIed the RhinOceros's Nose,
and the Great Beast sneezed.
From the English Illustrated Magazine.
1t is not easy to astonish a sparrow.
You can scare it-"often scared as oft
return, a pert voracious kind"-and make
it fly away; but that is only because the
sparrow has the bump Of self-preservation
very prominently developed and takes a
hint as to personal danger with extraordi-
nary promptitude. Bur though it may
remove it's small body out of harms way
for the time being, it is not discOncert-
ed. You can see that by the way in
which it Immediately goes on with its
toilet. Its nerves have not been shaken
that is evident, from it's obvious self-pos-
session and the way it scratches its he I'd
and makes a note of the fly which went
by. 1t would not commence at once
frivolous alteration With another of its
kind if it had been disconnected.
And, really, it is not to be wondered at
that the sparrow should be beyond the
reach of astonishment. Think of what it
sees, and sees quite unconcernedly, in
the streets of London. Put tiger into
Fleet street, or bear at the bank and
the poor beasts would go crazy with ter
ror A single omnibus would stampede
troop of lions. Yet sparrow surveys The
approaching fire engine undismayed, and
it sits with its back to the street Wnen
a runaway van comes laundering death
down Ludgate Hill. The small birds
life is, IN fact, so made up of surprises
that it regards the astounding as the
commonplace. So a fly, sitting down ~
a train, thinks nothing nj finding Itself
in the next county when it gets up. It's
whole existence is volcanic and seismic.
It cannot settle on a hand without the
hand moving. What would a dog think
if. on going into a ten acre field, the
field suddenly turned over? But the fly
is not mt out of countenalce by such pns-
nomena" It comes back TO the hand. 1t
is the same with the sparrow. 1t thinks
no more of another, wonder than the
in the days " ork.
All the same, l have seen sparrow to-
tally COMPOUNDED and all to pieces 1t was,
I confess, only young one with just the
promise of a tail, nothing more, and some
odds and ends of fluff still clinging between
the red feather. 1 was looking at the
rhinocerOs. which was lying down close
to the ratings, and a very sleepy rhinoc-
eros It was. Except for slight witches
of the tail and an occasional hdget of the
ears it was quite mOtonless. And the
young sparrow, hopping about in the en-
closure coming to the beast, hoped onto
it, looking in the chinks of its skin for
chance grains or insects. And IL hoped
all along its back and onto its head to the
little horn, and from the little horn onto
the big one land it blinked), and then off
the horn onto its nose.
And then the rhinoceroS Snorted. The
sparrow was a sight to see. Exploded is
no word for it. And it sat In a heap on
the corner of the house and chirped the
mOurntuleSt cnlIpS. i ndOnL the small
est notion the thing was alive" it said.
"Oh deari oh, dearr' and it wouldn't be
pacihed for a long time. Its establishment
had been severe and had got into the
system" remembered the story of the
boy who sat on the whales blowhole. Be
henoth had got stranded on the Shetland
coast While the population were admir-
ing il an urchin climbed on to the head
of the distressed monster, and exultantly
seated his graceless person on its fore
his triumph, and the next instant the
whale, filling itself with air, blew such
a blast through its blowhole that the boy
was blown up into the air and out to sea
So said the veracious chronicler Of the
day-and I hope it was true, for little boys
should not, under any circumstances, sit
on the blowholes of whales. Nor young
sparrows on the nostrils Of a rhinoceros.