lock hedges.
Soft-winged as the owl is, he cannot steal in upon such a retreat
without giving them warning.

These sparrows are becoming about the most noticeable of my winter
neighbors, and a troop of them every morning watch me put out the
hens' feed, and soon claim their share. I rather encouraged them in
their neighborliness, till one day I discovered the snow under a
favorite plum-tree where they most frequently perched covered with the
scales of the fruit-buds. On investigating, I found that the tree had
been nearly stripped of its buds,--a very unneighborly act on the part
of the sparrows, considering, too, all the cracked corn I had
scattered for them. So I at once served notice on them that our good
understanding was at an end. And a hint is as good as a kick with this
bird. The stone I hurled among them, and the one with which I followed
them up, may have been taken as a kick; but they were only a hint of
the shot-gun that stood ready in the corner. The sparrows left in high
dudgeon, and were not back again in some days, and were then very shy.
No doubt the time is near at hand when we shall have to wage serious
war upon these sparrows, as they long have had to do on the continent
of Europe. And yet it will be hard to kill the little wretches, the
only Old World bird we have. When I take down my gun to shoot them I
shall probably remember that the Psalmist said, "I watch, and am as a
sparrow alone upon the housetop," and maybe the recollection will
cause me to stay my hand. The sparrows have the Old World hardiness
and prolificness; they are wise and tenacious of life, and we shall
find it by and by no small matter to keep them in check. Our native
birds are much different, less prolific, less shrewd, less aggressive
and persistent, less quick-witted and able to read the note of danger
or hostility,--in short, less sophisticated. Most of our birds are yet
essentially wild, that is, little changed by civilization. In winter,
especially, they sweep by me and around me in flocks,--the Canada
sparrow, the snow bunting, the shore lark, the pine grosbeak, the
redpoll, the cedar-bird,--feeding upon frozen apples in the orchard,
upon cedar-berries, upon maple-buds, and the berries of the
mountain-ash, and the celtis, and upon the seeds of the weeds that
rise above the snow in the field, or upon the hayseed dropped where
the cattle have been foddered in the barnyard or about the distant
stack; but yet taking no heed o