AND INCREASE OF CERTAIN BIRDS [IN SCOTLAND. 61 
swallows (to use the more familiar term) gradually became 
fewer and fewer, the sparrows hindering them from nesting 
or occupying their nests when built, till in 1869 only two 
broods were hatched. Next year, Col. Russell began war- 
fare against the sparrows, which he kept up year by year, 
shooting them down rigorously. Thereupon the swallows 
increased so that in the spring of 1881 he counted 237 
nests round his house and premises. He notes also a fact 
which shows how far-reaching the economy of Nature is. 
When the swallows were almost extinct round his house, 
midges (up till then unknown in the district) became so 
plentiful that no one could sit in his garden on a calm 
evening; whenever the swallows re-established themselves 
the midges decreased. Ere I leave this subject, let me quote 
a few lines from Howard Saunders, ever cautious and scrupu- 
lously accurate in his statements.* “The food of the martin 
consists entirely of insects, and it is a pity that this 
beneficial bird should be dispossessed and driven from its 
home, as it often is, by the almost useless house sparrow.” 
Now let me quote my own recent experience. I have 
put up a good many nesting-boxes of various kinds in my 
garden, hoping to attract as many birds as possible, but the 
attempt is vain, for no bird can stand against the sparrows. 
Early last Spring a pair of Tree-creepers (Certhia 
familiaris) visited a bark-covered box which was placed in 
a cedar, opposite my windows. It was delightful to watch 
them running up the bark of the tree, then taking a short 
flight to the wall of the house, up which they ran like flies 
up a window-pane, then back to the nesting-box again. 
But though its entrance-holes had been narrowed down to a 
calibre just fitted to exclude sparrows, these bullies would 
not suffer the tree-creepers to enter. They were mobbed 
again and again and driven away. They returned three or 
four times, evidently much attracted by such snug quarters ; 
but they were, within twenty-four hours, hustled out of the 
garden by their jealous enemies—one hen-sparrow in 
particular being prominent in her attacks on them. 
Again, in the end of last April, a pair of Blue-tits (Parus 
ceruleus) built in another of my boxes, in spite of constant 
* British Birds, p. 158. 
