168 OUR BIRD ALLIES. 
case of a large kitchen-garden in Kent, which is 
bordered upon two sides by a gooseberry field and 
an orchard belonging to a different proprietor. In 
the former, sparrows are protected, and are unusually 
numerous in consequence, becoming so tame that 
they do not take to flight until one is within three or 
four feet of them. In the adjoining ground, on the 
contrary, they are mercilessly persecuted, and the 
report of the gun may be heard from morning to 
night throughout the spring and summer months. 
Yet the produce of the garden is always far more 
heavy, relatively speaking, than that of the orchard 
and field ; and even in seasons when the currant saw- 
fly is in the greatest profusion, the currant crop is as 
heavy as ever—and that is saying a good deal. Nor 
do I know—and my experience extends over several 
years—that any other crop in the garden suffers from 
the presence of the sparrows in such unusual numbers. 
Failure of any kind seems to be a thing unknown, 
the gardener takes prize after prize at the local horti- 
cultural shows, and no mischief of any kind appears 
to detract from the services rendered by the bird. 
I may also call attention to the fact that at Maine, 
some thirty years ago, sparrows were in great measure 
exterminated in accordance with government edict, 
with the result that, in the following year, crops of 
all kinds, together with even the foliage of the trees, 
were almost wholly destroyed by insects. And at 
Auxerre, about the same time, a similar occurrence 
took place with an exactly similar result. 
It may be urged, perhaps, that the general opposi- 
