152 OUR BIRD ALLIES. 
upon agricultural life, and which is itself the result 
of traditions handed down from generation to genera- 
tion, and accepted as established facts which it would 
be little less than heresy to doubt. And this not in 
the case of the sparrow alone, which is merely one 
victim out of many. The mole is useful in four dis- 
tinct ways, but the mole is persecuted by nineteen 
farmers out of every twenty. Titmice are wholly 
beneficial throughout their lives, but titmice are shot 
down in hundreds. And these, as every naturalist 
knows, are by no means isolated instances. The life of 
an average farmer, indeed, is a fierce and perpetual 
conflict with all the living creatures around him, his 
intelligence refusing to recognise the fact that one 
animal is not necessarily injurious because another 
may happen to be so. Of its true influence and 
economy he probably knows nothing; its supposed 
enmity towards mankind he has never troubled him- 
self to confirm. But he cares neither for evidence 
nor for observation, and prefers to pin his faith to the 
old fallacies, in accordance with which he persecutes 
both friends and foes together. 
There are, of course, a few exceptions to this rule, 
men who understand that the influence of certain 
beings tells in their favour, while that of others tells 
against them, and that there is, consequently, one 
class of animals which they should encourage, and 
another which they must restrain. But such men, 
unfortunately, are very rare, and even they, in too 
many instances, are apt to magnify the evil, and 
