DURING EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR. 17 



To give a summary of this Table in a few words, it may 

 be said that about 75% of an adult sparrow's food during 

 its life is corn of some kind. The remaining 25% may be 

 roughly divided as follows : 



Seeds of weeds - - - -10% 

 Green Peas . . - - 4 

 Beetles ----- 3 

 Caterpillars . . _ - 2 

 Insects which fly - - - i 

 Other things - - - - 5 



In young sparrows not more than 40% is corn, while 

 about 40% consists of caterpillars, and 10% of small 

 beetles. This is up to the age of sixteen days. Where 

 green peas abound, as in market gardens, they form^a 

 much larger proportion of the sparrows' food than the 4% 

 here stated. 



Sparrows generally contain in their gizzards a consider- 

 able quantity of small stones, gravel, sand, brick, coal, 

 etc., but these are only intended to grind the real food. 

 In default of these substances they will swallow small 

 mollusks, fragments of egg-shell, fragments of snail- 

 shells, etc. 



Sparrows should be killed for dissection in the after- 

 noon. In adult sparrows the crop will generally give a 

 far better idea of their day's meal than the gizzard, in 

 which the food is so comminuted as to be with difficulty 

 identified. If the sparrows are caught at night, they have 

 digested their food in a great measure, and yield much 

 less satisfactory results : the crops at that time are always 

 empty. 



