Nos ember 2—Generally I do not approve of ov who address all passing strangers yet there must be exceptions, as my recent experience will witness. Looking across s of a docked ship at a mob of small birds feeding on wharfside gleanings, I was addressed by a wee lad in the following remarkable manner: "Uncle, why are there so many Sparrows and why are they so greedy?" The terrific force of such a combination of queries hit me like a bombshell and I replied once as follows. "A most interesting point, laddie, and one ich proves your native wisdom: I can only answer you by reversing your own words and saying, it is because Sparrows are so greedy that there are so many of them!" Listen to me carefully, my self-appointed nephew, and I will try to tell you why. The Sparrow has so developed that it demands all and gives nothing; it is born tough, armed with a strong bill, and has a capacity for food much beyond its needs; it gives little or nothing to the world in the way of beauty or song....but it spends its natural forces in grabbing all the food in sight, doing as little Work as possible, and bringing up large families without providing them with any visible means of support. Compare the Sparrow then, my nephew, to other forms of life: in the avian world to the Bird of Paradise with all its beauty or to the Nightingale with all its power of song: are they so plentiful and greedy, my remote lineal descendant? No! And Why? Because they are givers and not takers as the Sparrows are. Compare them again to mankind. my avuncular relative, end you will find that all the highly civilized peoples. giving of their best in an altruistic spirit to an unappredative world, are the smallest in number...because their innate spirit of fairness tells them that greed and numbers go hand in hand." I was, in fact, well into my stride....but the newly-found nephew had long ego bounced across the deck and was already asking a new Uncle why the cow across the way had got a hump like a camel, but in the wrong place,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.