I followed him, and could soon hear the pitiful cries of a sparrow, up near a spout that comes out from under the wooden eave of the tallest gable of the cottage. The dog pointed up there, continuing to whine as he did so, and evidently in grief because he couldn’t fly.
It was not long before I mastered the whole facts of the case. They were as follows:—Close by the funnel-shaped mouth of the descending spout, and supported by some branches of the wistaria, a pair of sparrows had built in the previous spring and raised several broods. It was February now, and they had come round prospecting—impressed doubtless by old associations—to see if the same nest could not be refitted, and thus do duty again. Full of excitement, the cock bird had hopped down between the woodwork of the eave and the spout, and seeing a crack about half an inch wide beneath, had attempted to come out there. He got his head through and one wing, but there he had stuck.
It was quite affecting to witness the agony and perturbation displayed by the hen bird—the poor imprisoned cock did nothing but struggle and flutter—her cries were pitiful, and every now and then she would seize her spouse by head or by wing and try to pull him through.
Meanwhile, on a twig of wistaria not a yard away sat another cock-sparrow, an interested but inactive spectator. He simply looked on, and never volunteered either assistance or a suggestion.
As soon as I could procure a ladder long enough to get up, I went to the rescue, but the poor bird’s head had drooped—he was dead; and so firmly fixed in the crack that I could neither drag him through nor push him back. The hen sparrow and the strange cock sat looking at me some little way off, but the former after this made no further attempt to relieve the cock bird. He was no more, and she must have known it. But who the mystery was the strange cock—the impassive spectator? Was he father, brother, or, dear me! was he a former lover—a rival? Did he sit there mocking the dying agony of the other bird? Did he address him thus:—“You’re booked, old man. You may kick and flutter as much as you please. I tell you you are as good as dead already. When you are gone I’ll hop into your place. This nest will suit us nicely. Us, I say, d’ye hear? It will suit us, and we will soon forget you. Good-by, old man, keep up your pecker.”
I would have torn down the old nest, but I really was curious to know if the dead sparrow’s widow would wed again, and take up house there. Surely she would never bear to pop out and in at the doorway of that nest, with the skeleton of her late lamented husband hanging out through the crack. I left the nest for a month or two, then tore it down, but no birds have ever built there since.
There are more hen than cock-sparrows, and this may account for the prevalence of polygamism in the community. As to old-maid sparrows, I have assuredly often known nests built by hens alone, but am willing to admit that these hens may be relicts, some accident may have happened to the husband. However, it is a fact that there are plenty of bachelor sparrows, who live a free and easy life all the summer, and never dream of becoming Benedicts; you see them in the gardens, and you meet them out in the fields, and they are always in company with other male sparrows of their own way of thinking.
Now every one who lives in the country is perfectly familiar with those little disturbances that often arise all of a sudden among sparrows, when about half a dozen go flying into a bush together, squabbling, bickering, and fighting with fearful ferocity. Some books gravely tell us that these squabbles are in reality courts-martial being held on some erring brother or sister of this genus Passer. I never took this for granted, and for three or four summers I have used my best endeavours to get at the true explanation of the matter, and I am satisfied they are caused by differences of opinion between Benedict and bachelor sparrows, resulting in a match “’twixt married and single,” a free fight, in which the females take part.
Female sparrows often fight most viciously together from bush to bush, but preferably on the ground. I have often seen a stand-up battle between the two wives of a bigamist sparrow. He himself would simply stand about a yard off, and look on.
“It’s no good interfering,” the cock appears to think; “it is a sad state of affairs to be sure, but what can a fellow do? I must try to manage matters differently another year.”