70 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Dr. Edward Crisp examined 100 stomachs of young 

 sparrows before the British Association at Birmingham in 

 1865, and not 5 per cent, of them contained insect food. 



Mr. John Cqrdeaux opened the crops of thirty-five young 

 sparrows of various ages, and found on an average two parts of 

 soft grain and one part of insects. 



Colonel Champion Russell, of Stubbers, near Eomford, 

 Essex, examined the contents of the stomachs of sparrows 

 shot over a wide extent of country for fifteen years, and he 

 gives the result of his observations in the following words : 

 " On the whole, the deduction from the food test during fifteen 

 years seems to be that sparrows are useless, and that the 

 insects which would be given to their young by them if they 

 were allowed to live in numbers about my premises would be 

 so much food taken when they most want it from better 

 birds, which live entirely, or nearly so, on insects." 



In an essay entitled " Birds in the Field and Garden," by 

 Champion B. Eussell, presumably the same gentleman as the 

 one from whom I have just quoted, there occurs the following 

 passage: "Personally, I consider that only one bird should 

 be shot ' on sight,' and that is the domestic sparrow, whose 

 relations to man are on a par with those of rats, mice, and 

 other human parasites." Now, the essay referred to is the 

 first-prize essay published in February, 1903, by the British 

 Society for the Protection of Birds, and one would expect that 

 coming from such a source the bias, if any, would be in favour 

 of the bird ; but the condemnation is unsparing. 



Turning again to the American report, I find in the table 

 the birds are, under the heading " Age and Sex," indicated by 

 the abbreviations " ad.," which I assume stands for adult, 

 " juv." for young, and " im." for immature, which I take to be 

 nestlings, and, taking a couple of the latter at random, I find 

 that one contained wheat, oats, and grass-seed, and no msects, 

 and another wheat and the remains of one beneficial insect. 



But it is unnecessary to pursue this bi'anch of the subject 

 further, as I think that in the face of such evidence it would 

 be difficult for the friend of the sparrow to maintain his 

 defence, and that Sir Walter Buller's assertion that the young 

 are fed exclusively on animal food is disproved. 



I may here call attention to the fact I have ah'eady re- 

 ferred to — that the American investigators found that, while 

 injurious insects were found in only forty-seven stomachs, 

 beneficial msects were found in fifty and harmless insects in 

 thirty-one ; so that even in the matter of the destruction of 

 insects the sparrow does as mucii harm as good. 



In another publication by the Agricultural Department 

 of the United States, dealing with the native insectivorous 

 cuckoos, it is stated that the food of these birds was found to 



