COUNTRY LIFE
December's Spring
More and more curious results of the continuance of autum- nal warmth and damp meet both townsman and countryman. The most gullible of birds is doubtless the urban sparrow. If it is warm in December the pairs begin carrying straws and starting nests, not only in gutters and architectural nooks, but in the trees of the London parks. Some of these sparrows' nests in thorn bushes look almost as large as squirrels' dreys ; and this winter the nesting precocity of the sparrow has been noted in towns small and great. Another and very different bird is ready to believe in the arrival of spring in December. Ravens have been known—the experience is not mine—to nest in December, and this December others of the crow tribe, though habitually later than the always early raven, have been very busy in the rookeries. The crows doubtless do not sing, but they have a greater variety of note, of tone than perhaps any bird ; and those learned in their voices have detected the sounds that belong peculiarly to spring. Part- ridges were here and there in pairs on the eve of the new year, but the birds (whose domestic virtues are in all respects ideal) enjoy a longer courting period than the rest ; and early Pairing does not necessarily mean early nesting.
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