150 OUR BIRD ALLIES. 
The sparrow has its enemies, who contend that 
its total extermination is the one and only method 
to preserve English agriculture from total ruin; its 
apologists, who own its faults, but argue that they are 
in some degree counterbalanced by its virtues; and its 
friends, who consider that its services, when carefully 
weighed in the scale, far outbalance the depredations 
which it undoubtedly commits. And, after collecting 
all possible evidence, experimenting and observing 
for myself, and considering the entire subject from 
every point of view, I take this opportunity of un- 
hesitatingly stating that I enrol myself as a member 
of the latter class. 
I do not say that the sparrow is harmless, but I do 
say that it is the friend of man. I do not deny that 
its ravages are at times excessive, but I do assert that 
its services are even greater. I do not say that under 
no circumstances should it ever be killed, but I do © 
say that even its partial extermination would be little 
short of a national calamity. And I ask the reader 
to follow me through the evidence and arguments, 
both for and against the bird, which I am about to 
lay before him, and to reserve his final judgment 
until he shall have fully acquainted himself with all 
the facts of the case. 
WERE the testimony upon both sides of the question 
to be carefully collected, there can be no doubt what- 
ever that by far the greater proportion would tell 
against the bird. For one witness in favour of the 
sparrow, indeed, there are twenty against him; and 
