THE SPARROW ; ITS VIRTUES. 169 
tion to the sparrow is more the result of its doings 
in the corn-field than in the garden, and that the 
bird cannot be encouraged, or even tolerated, in 
the former situation without the certainty of con- 
siderable loss. I do not deny it. I merely suggest 
that its good deeds elsewhere outweigh its theft of 
grain; that it should be scared away from the fields 
at seed-time and at harvest; and that, even when 
most busily engaged among the corn, its proceed- 
ings may not be wholly and altogether injurious. 
The Thanet corn crop is perhaps. as fine and heavy 
as almost any in the kingdom; yet sparrows in 
Thanet are unusually numerous. Of those who 
would assert, without reservation, that in corn-grow- 
ing districts the bird is productive of nothing but 
harm, I would ask why it was that sparrows were 
originally introduced into New Zealand in order to 
kill off certain insects destructive to corn, had they 
never done as much in the mother country ? 
NeExtT as to the fact that sparrows occasionally drive 
martins from the abodes of men. That they 
do so, as I have already stated, I do not deny; 
but I do not think that the mischief which they 
cause in so doing is nearly so great as is generally 
supposed. 
For, in the first place, as an almost invariable 
rule, they merely evict the birds; they do not kill 
them. Excepting, therefore, that in some few cases 
the ejectment may take place after the eggs are 
hatched, and the young brood be thus destroyed, 
