170 BIRDS. 



is not unlike that of the last, and the eggs, somewhat 

 smaller, are of a more pronounced blue. 



Serin. — A rare straggler from the South. It has occurred 

 about a dozen times in England and once in Ireland. 



The House- Sparrow resides in most countries of the 



civilised world, and where nature had mercifully omitted 



it from the programme, as, for instance, in 



parro . ^^g|-j,^jjg^ g^j-^(j New Zealand, man had the 



good sense to introduce it and temper the pleasures of 

 colonising to an extent which the present generation 

 has no difficulty in recognising, and for which it duly 

 respects the judgment of the pioneers. Nature is often 

 best left alone, and this introduction of the 

 Artificial sparrow into continents in which nature had 



introduction. ^ . , , r^ • , ^ ^ 



provided no emcient check, was even more 

 culpable than the other extreme of exterminating it in 

 others where it may have had its sphere of usefulness in 

 the scheme. Not only is it a scavenger which some teem- 

 ing cities could ill spare, but it may at times be of use even 

 in ao-ricultural districts where the conditions would, with- 

 out it, be favourable for the undesirable multiplication of 

 insect life. At the same time, it may possibly keep away 

 other preferable fowl. It is an old story, but an instruc- 

 tive one, how Frederick the Great once offered a reward of 



one halfpenny a head for dead sparrows, a bait 

 .* to be considered in so poor a country as his ; 

 but the orchards were ere long overrun with grubs, and 

 the great one had to own his error, and to take the bird 

 under his own royal protection. On another occasion, 

 the Hungarians exterminated the bird, which their Gov- 

 ernment had to restore at a cost of thousands of pounds. 

 And it is within the memory of the present generation 

 in Ireland how the sparrow mercifully came on the scene 

 thirty years ago and put an end to the plague of cock- 

 chafers. 



Without, however, going to either extreme, a moderate 



