Of dingy colour, quiet, unobtrusive, yet ever busy, the Hedge Accentor, vulgarly misnamed the “Hedge Sparrow,” resembles in his character those among us who are content, even in the bustle of our great cities, to go quietly on their way, doing good wherever they find opportunity and receiving uncomplainingly the kicks which their busier brethren are often only too eager to bestow.

And so it is with the Hedge Sparrow; year in, year out, he is ever with us, quietly and diligently seeking his food along a hedge bottom, on the edge of a coppice, on the garden path, or wherever else he may happen to find himself. He does incalculable good in destroying numbers of noxious insects, and when winter comes, and such food is scarce, he turns his attention to seeds of all kinds, thus helping to keep down many weeds which would otherwise overrun our fields and gardens. Peaceful by nature, he has become very common, and imagining ill of none he is tame, hopping up from the path just in front of us, and disappearing quietly and without sound into the nearest cover, and then, working his way by quiet “creeping hops” (if such an expression be allowable) to the bottom of the bush or hedge, he reappears behind us. We in our turn, it is true, do not often molest him, in fact he is generally ignored and his presence unsuspected, and even when seen, many of us think—“only a sparrow!” and judge him and his acts by those of a race as different from him in habits and qualities as we are from the Chinese!

When he does utter a note, which is towards evening or when suddenly alarmed, it is a short shrill “iss,” rather like a pencil being drawn across a slate; his song, which is commenced in March and only carried on during the breeding season, is like his own character, very sweet and unobtrusive, being in fact a low warble, wandering through its inconsecutive measures without any marked phrases or pauses. By early April he will have chosen his mate and the site for his future home, and now and again one may see him having a slight tiff with a neighbour, who may covet his particular nesting-place, but it is nothing serious, for the said neighbour, if defeated, will have his home but a few yards farther on and apparently enjoy possession unmolested.