172 • THE FLOEIST AND POMOLOC-IST. [August, 



for having an opinion respecting his new acquaintance and evidently pet apple. 

 Not only so, but pluming himself on that little knowledge which short acquaint- 

 ance necessarily involves, he elects himself as champion of " the Calville Blanc." 

 "What I said of the White Calville or Calville Blanche Apple (p. 77) is as true 

 to-day as it was the day I wrote it ; and I consider it is the duty of every social 

 economist and lover of his kind to placard the truth, whenever and wherever 

 opportunities present themselves. If Mr. Tillery wishes for better evidence than 

 "ocular demonstration" and "practical experience" affords, I question very 

 much whether he will find it in discussing the merits of fruits which soil, 

 situation, temperature, and the elements make so different in different situations. 

 However, chacun a son gout. 



Jersey. 0. B. S. 



EVILS OF ACCLIMATIZATION. 



SPAEEOWS AND BABBITS IN AUSTEALIA. 



fN some remarks of mine in a former volume of the Floeist (2nd series, 

 iv., 122), I wrote respecting Sparrows destroying young peas and devouring 

 W> gooseberry buds, as follows : — " Our brethren at the Antipodes are stated 

 'ty to have been at great expense and trouble in introducing the sparrow into 

 that quarter of the globe, but I am afraid they will yet be sorry for trying 

 the experiment. Mr. Sparrow will be sure to colonize faster than the inhabitants ; 

 and, like the brown rat, he will require all the ingenuity of man to keep him 

 within bounds." At the time I wrote this, I did not expect to see the fact so soon 

 verified as it is, by the following extract from the communication of a Melbourne 

 correspondent : — " The sparrow is another importation against which we ought 

 to take up arms, so abundant are these birds now in every direction ; but for the 

 common belief that he earns his living by keeping down the caterpillars and 

 noxious insects in the fields and gardens, it must certainly be admitted by 

 the sparrow's best friends — of whom I profess myself one — that in his moral 

 qualities of impudence and shrewdness, he does not degenerate in this climate. 

 He is equally at home among the fowls in your farmyard, astonishing some grave 

 old hen by withdrawing a choice morsel from under her very beak, or in making 

 a raid on your seeds, or on your vineyard and cherry trees just as the fruit is 

 ripening, of which he is alwaj^s himself well informed by experiment." It must 

 be admitted that if the sparrow is so fond of fruit in Australia, he must have 

 acquired a new taste there ; for with all his faults with us, he has never been 

 considered a fruit-eater by gardeners. 



The other importation, that of wild Babbits, into Australia, threatens to be a 

 great curse to the settlers, for they are breeding so fast that they will soon starve 

 the sheep out of their runs. The Melbourne correspondent says of them, "that they 

 are spreading more or less all over the country, and I have seen them scampering 

 about even in the gardens near Melbourne. As food they greatly affect some of 



