old one in two ways: first, the old one, after the labours of bringing up a brood or two, was worn and ragged, while the new-comer was fresh as a daisy, and fluffy and young-looking as a nestling; second, she approached the nest in a different way. It is true of sparrows, however it may be with other birds, that each one has his special alighting-places, a certain twig where he first settles, and certain others on which, as a flight of steps, he invariably proceeds to his nest. The mother of the dead infant always came to the home from the right side, and her grim tyrant does so still, but the bride selected a convenient series of twigs on the left side.
It is now four or five days since the crime was committed, and although the new spouse is perfectly at home and settled, peace, even to the extent that a sparrow enjoys it, is still a stranger to the spruce-tree nest. I think it is haunted by the discarded mate. Certainly a sparrow, that I have no doubt is she, comes to the neighbourhood, and scolds the meek-looking bride and her spouse in most savage fashion. No one resents her performance, and after a moment she goes away.
The sparrow is an autocrat, especially addicted to divorcing his partner upon the smallest pretext. I have elsewhere chronicled two small dramas in sparrow life which I watched from beginning to end. The actors in the first were a pair living in a hole in a maple-tree before my window. For some undiscoverable reason the graceless head of the household decided to make a change in his domestic arrangements, and to begin by divorce. In that case the female had the advantage, since the home was not an open nest, but a castle. She had possession and kept it for two days, in spite of violent vituperation and the most threatening manner. In this case, also, I
5—2
