NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



to life. The pest steadily advanced until the fields 

 were covered with dense masses of prickly plants 

 struggling one with another for elbow-room. 



Again the sparrow, which had saved the colonists 

 from the insect invasion, came to the rescue. These 

 birds had multiplied and overspread the country, and 

 it was a fortunate circumstance for the farmers that 

 they had found the country so congenial. In tens of 

 thousands the sparrows assembled and fed upon the 

 seeds of the thistle. Possibly an ancestral liking for 

 it had been revived, for they abandoned all other 

 kinds of seeds and fed exclusively on it, and the weed 

 was vanquished ; for, aided so magnificently by their 

 feathered allies, the farmers were able to get it under 

 control. 



Man's memory for good and kind services rendered 

 is short. Injure him in any way, however, and his 

 memory is long — regrettably long. Man readily forgets 

 a kindness, but an injury rankles long and persistently 

 in his brain cells, like a noxious parasitic growth. 



Buckland tells us that the sparrow was regarded in 

 his day in New Zealand " as an impudent thief, without 

 any redeeming feature in its character." True, when 

 the sparrow increases abnormally in numbers, it does 

 considerable harm. The too rapid increase of the 

 bird may be checked with advantage at times in and 

 about settlements, but in the light of past experiences 

 the New Zealanders would be indeed unwise ever to 

 organise campaigns for its entire extermination. In 

 the face of numerous and bitter complaints and revil- 

 ings from farmers against the sparrow, there are 



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