welcomes a storm with such a vigorous and hearty song that in some
countries he is known as storm-cock. He sometimes kills the young of
other birds and eats eggs,--a very unthrushlike trait. The whitethroat
sings with crest erect, and attitudes of warning and defiance. The
hooper is a great bully; so is the greenfinch. The wood-grouse--now
extinct, I believe--has been known to attack people in the woods. And
behold the grit and hardihood of that little emigrant or exile to our
shores, the English sparrow! Our birds have their tilts and spats also;
but the only really quarrelsome members in our family are confined to
the flycatchers, as the kingbird and the great crested flycatcher. None
of our song-birds are bullies.

Many of our more vigorous species, as the butcherbird, the crossbills,
the pine grosbeak, the redpoll, the Bohemian chatterer, the shore lark,
the longspur, the snow bunting, etc., are common to both continents.

Have the Old World creatures throughout more pluck and hardihood than
those that are indigenous to this continent? Behold the common mouse,
how he has followed man to this country and established himself here
against all opposition, overrunning our houses and barns, while the
native species is rarely seen. And when has anybody seen the American
rat, while his congener from across the water has penetrated to every
part of the continent! By the next train that takes the family to some
Western frontier, arrives this pest. Both our rat and mouse or mice are
timid, harmless, delicate creatures, compared with the cunning, filthy,
and prolific specimens that have fought their way to us from the Old
World. There is little doubt, also, that the red fox has been
transplanted to this country from Europe. He is certainly on the
increase, and is fast running out the native gray species.