1893. ORNITHOLOGY. 285 
these are an Eastern race, distinct from our common bird, and have 
purple heads and green ear-coverts, and they leave the country in the 
spring. 
We are somewhat doubtful as to what Mr. Riley Fortune tells us 
in chap. x., that the starling picks the ‘“ ticks”’ from the wool on the 
backs of sheep. We rather think he uses the sheep’s back as a con- 
venient perch. At various times we have watched them through a 
glass at a short distance, when perched on the backs of thick-wooled 
Lincoln sheep, but have never seen them actually picking off the 
sheep fags. 
Much more might well be written on this most interesting topic, 
the subject is practically an inexhaustible one. Out of the multitude 
of our miscellaneous small birds, the greater part are absolutely 
innocuous and are largely beneficial. In other cases, the injury done 
at certain seasons is slight and amply counterbalanced by the 
services they render during the rest of the year in destroying 
insects and the seeds of weeds. 
In conclusion, to sum up the evidence both for and against, as 
placed before us by the able ornithologists in Mr. Watson’s book, it 
is abundantly apparent that the case for the prosecution falls very far 
short of the defence, and that the verdict must be an acquittal for the 
birds, both as regarding individual species and in the aggregate, with 
an admission that the benefit they confer upon man is far in excess of 
theinjury. There is one exception to this, and that is the ubiquitous 
and all-devouring sparrow. 
““O wretched set of sparrows, one and all,’’— 
Perhapsno greater mischief is done than by that large classof senti- 
mental writers who are ever ready to exaggerate the good qualities of 
their feathered favourites and to minimise the evil. It must, however, 
be apparent to the dullest intellect that no wild bird is able to draw a 
line between the natural production of the soil and those seeds and 
fruit which are the results of man’s industry. Neither can it be 
expected that hawk or falcon can discriminate between the young of 
a wild bird and a coop-reared pheasant or partridge. In so highly a 
cultivated country as England, birds would often be put to great 
straits if they had to depend on wild fruits or seeds alone, and, having 
dispossessed them of their inheritance, we must be satisfied to give our 
little workers some small share of our produce as a return for the im- 
portant services rendered in keeping down weeds and insects, and 
thus indirectly helping to increase the fertility and productiveness of 
the soil. 
JoHN CoRDEAUX. 
