A Sparrow's Antipathy to Purple

Abstract

I HAVE but just seen your number for March 10. About five years ago I knew a tame sparrow with a great antipathy for purple. It was brought up in a room, but not, or seldom, caged. It lived four or five months. A piece of blue paper placed over its food would cause it to hesitate, though if hungry it would eventually draw the paper aside; a person coming into the room wearing a blue dress would make it quite wild, and a habit of mischievously pecking at a certain part of the wall of the room was successfully stopped by hanging a piece of blue paper there. This sparrow was taught to be cleanly in its habits. I had put off writing this to you in hopes that others who saw more of the sparrow would have written a more detailed account, but trust this letter may not be too late for any one interested to get a young sparrow from the nest this year and rear it. Sparrows have not yet reached Borneo.