284 NATURAL SCIENCE, APRIL, 
ferred by the consumption of injurious seeds and noxious insects. 
They entail also direct harmful consequences by their pugnacious 
and self-assertive nature in driving off useful insectivorous birds from 
the neighbourhood of their haunts. Yet it is by no means clearly 
proved that an utter and complete extermination of the sparrow- 
nuisance would be a benefit, for when man upsets the balance of 
nature, he very often has to pay for it in some form or other. 
The sparrow certainly requires no Act of Parliament to protect 
him, and the plea of sentimentalists and humanitarians that he should 
be allowed to increase and multiply unchecked, will certainly never 
be listened to by those country folk who are best able to form a 
judgment in the matter. 
There can be no doubt that, during the last half-century, the 
woodpigeon or ringdove (Columba palumbus) has increased to an 
enormous extent. The causes of this increase are, doubtless, the 
killing off of the falcons and hawks, which are the natural enemies 
of the race, the increase of woods and plantations, especially 
those of fir, and the abundance of winter food in turnips and other 
green crops. It is quite certain, too, that in the autumn the ranks of 
our local birds are greatly increased by immigrants from the Continent. 
In the autumn, woodpigeons congregate, and attack the ripening 
corn, particularly in those spots where it is storm-laid, devouring 
great quantities, and crushing and trampling the heads to near the 
ground, so that in a wet season much becomes hopelessly sprouted. 
In winter they commit serious ravages in the turnip crops by eating 
the leaves, thus exposing the bulb to frost. They are also very 
partial to the young clover plant. The ringdove, however, has 
redeeming points, its plaintive coo, roo, coo, coo is a pleasant sound 
at early morning in spring woodlands, and in the winter it is a real 
sporting bird, and excellent eating. 
The injury done by rooks has often been much exaggerated by 
farmers and others. If we put aside those periods of the year when 
it levies contributions on the newly-sown corn, especially when badly 
covered, the time when the corn is ripening, injury done to stacks and 
swede turnips in severe weather—we have pretty well enumerated all 
the charges brought against him. All the rest of the year he is rid- 
ding the pastures of injurious grubs, such as the larve of the cock- 
chafer (Melolantha), and of the cranefly (Tzpula). In recent years, 
rooks, in those districts where they are too many, or short of food ina 
drought, have been accused of developing egg-stealing propensities, 
and harrying the nests of game birds and wild fowl, and killing the 
young, and we are afraid he is not altogether guiltless in this respect. 
The starling, considered from an agricultural point, is the greatest 
possible friend both of farmer and gardener, its food during the 
whole of the year consisting of grubs, small molluscs, worms, and 
insects, and only very occasionally fruit and berries. In the autumn 
immense flights of migrating starlings come to us from the Continent ; 
