178 OUR BIRD ALLIES. 
Now, even within the last forty or fifty years, a con- 
siderable area has been reclaimed from marsh or 
forest, and taken into cultivation. With increased 
acreage of arable land an increase of crops neces- 
sarily follows ; and with the increase of crops comes 
the increase of insects. And thus we require an 
increase of birds. 
The contention, therefore, that sparrows must be 
reduced in number, although not exterminated, 
merely on account of their abnormal abundance 
falls to the ground ; for their abundance is not ab- 
normal at all. We have at the present time, in fact, © 
a decreased number of birds, owing to the manner in 
which we have ruthlessly slaughtered them, and an 
increased number of insects, owing partly to our perse- 
cution of their natural enemies and partly to the 
increased area under cultivation; and the excess, 
consequently, is scarcely upon the side of the birds. 
Nor does the usefulness of the sparrow consist in its 
slaughter of insects alone, for, at certain times of the 
year, the bird devours a great quantity of wild seeds, 
more especially those of plants which, like the dande- 
lion, the groundsel, and the plantain, are especially 
annoying to horticulturists and farmers. Most of us 
must have noticed sparrows diligently pecking away 
upon the flower-beds in our gardens, or working as 
industriously in the fields at times when neither 
insects nor grain are to be obtained ; and in almost 
every such case the birds are busily devouring the 
