The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-08-30
THE ENGLISH SPARROW AND
 THE ENGLISH TROITT.

NAAI INNLlSH SPARROW AND
 THE ENGLISH TROUT.
 The English sparrow is one of the most unattractive birds, we should say the most unattractive were it not that pictures of the apteryx and the dodo suggest that 1t is impossible that the avian family hay contain specimens mere ill-bred and generally disreputa- ble in appearance than he Both these, however, we believe, are extinct, hav- ing perished like the ichthyosaurus of innate homellness, and have been set aside in the scheme of evolution as im- perfect and mistaken conceptions" The English sparrow therefore. remains the most ill-conditioned, disagreeable- looking and unpleasant-man of all tho birds.
 It would be unfair to compare him With our song-sparrow, for he makes no pretension to musical skill and frankly admits that his voice is harsh and strident and fit for scoldings, bick- erings and insults only. but compare him to our familiar ''chippy." The feathers of the English bird-it is not possible conscientiously to use the word ''plumage" in connection with him the feathers of the English bird are of dull color and look dirty and fad ed; his clothes have never been brush ed, His heavy bill, coarse head, hunched-up shoulders. pugnacious bearing and stumpy tail, with two feathers pulled out and one turned sidewise, suggest that the pronuncia- tion of his name, "sparrer," is correct, for like a professional fighter, he is always quarreling out loud and prac- ticing "the preliminary objurgations. Compare all this to our chippy whose plumage is neat but not gaudy, whose form is the refinement of elegance and whose air and manner is the perfec- tion of unobtrusive, cheerful courtesy. His outline is the perfection of grace and adjusted proportion. Observe him as he goes systematically through the woodbine on the piazza in search of noxious insects; how thoroughly and neatly he works, neither inviting nor soliciting your observation. There is no lost motion about the chippy, but all the movements of the English spar row are jerky and 'aimless, as of some thing that has no definite place in the scheme of creation and is working for one.
 Much the same contrast holds be- tween our brook trout and the import nI Etrc f.p, i'm a C a iIarouyn trout" Of course all trout are beauti- ful, but the English fish is chunkier and blunter, the curve of the back, which in the American is said by artists to be the most beautiful line in animate na- ture, is f1attened slightly by the incre as- ed size of the head. The colors are all toned down and subdued by the slight but all-important degradation, which marks the line between the work of the great colorists and the successful imi tators. Tn disposition the English trout is at once sullen and voracious and is an unsuitable cannibal. The American trout, it is true, is not wholly free'from blame in this regard, but he does not devour the young of his own race in the wholesale and promiscuous way that marks the feeding of his English cousin.
 The contrast between the typical car features of John Bull and Uncle Sam is not altogether without Justification in fact. There is tendency in this coun- | try to produce a simmer, more active and elegantly formed animal than the l English prototype. We have no wish to lessen the international good feeling between the two great branches of the English-speaking peoples but we must | say firmly that the pugnacious and pro- creative English sparrow is an ugly | looking bird and an unnitigated n'li- l sance, without brains enough to teach ! him to go south in winter or breast enough to make him worth eating.-- Hartford Courant.