The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-02-23
DISCRIMINATING sPARRows.
They Know the Mistress of the House
and Appeal Only to Her For Food

From the New York Sun.
Down where the observant Jerseyman
lives the English sparrow has lived down
the evil things that have been said of him
for years, and he is always a welcome
uehlzen OF the Jerseymans DOMAIN; Inc
sparrows ind n comfortable home in the
dense growth of the wistaria vines, IN the
grape arbors and in the evergreen cedar
trees, and far from driving away the other
birds, they seem to get along with them
all in most peaceful manner. Now, when
all the others have gone TO warmer chimes
or taken refuge in the deep woods, the
sparroWs Still keep up recollection or
summer among the suburbanites and their
morning twitter is a welcome sound.
What these sparrows do not know seems
hardly worth knowing. While the ground
was open and uncovered they took care OF
themselves and We're seldom seen about
the house except mornings and evenings,
and no one would have supposed that the
flock knew anything of the persons in the
house But when the first heavy snow
came and the usual supply of food could
not be gathered abroad. the birds showed
that they not only knew that they had
friends in the house, but that they realiz-
ed just who was the friend to be relied
upon most.
on the first of these mornings the Jer-
seyman's wife had her attention attract
ca by a tapping and tluttering at one of
the kitchen windows. The kitchen is In
a basement. and its windows are half
above and half below the level Of the
ground. The whole home flock of spar
rows had gathered before one of these
windows. and they were pecking at its
to 1t. She opened the window and the
birds merely hoped or flew a little way
off and waited. Then she shoveed fat
place In the snow with a duStpan and put
out a supply of bread crumbs The birds
ate these and flew away. They were there
again the next morning, making the same
appeals for food. Then 1t occurred to the
mistress of the house that the appeals
were made directly TO her. The servant
was In the kitchen every morning but
the birds did not appeal to her. and other
members of the family were also about,
but they received no calls for crumbe
on the following day the mistress of the
house purposely delayed getting into the
kitchen until much later than usual 9th
err members of the family were sent down
one after another and all showed them
selves at the dining room windows. The
sparrows were all in the yard, but they
did not approach the windows, and SEEM
ed much put out by their waiting BY
and by the housewife went to the kitch-
en-. No sooner did she step from the stair
way than some watchful sparrow saw
one accord to the window and began tap
ping for food.
one curious feature of this is, that
when winter came the birds of that flock
had not been fed since nearly a year ago,
when the mistress of the house showered
rice or bread crumbs upon them from the
back stoop They would let her pelt
them with the food and never seem to
mind 1t, but IL any other person appeared
suddenly at a window the whole flock
would take flight and seem to hold a
conference from many parts of the yard
before they would venture back.