BV A FRIEND OF THE FARMERS. 23 



examining the food in thousands, old and young ; old 

 ones from all sorts of places at all "times of year, young 

 ones from wherever I could get any all through the 

 breeding season. The result, confirmed by occasional 

 examinations up to the present time, was that I found 

 that sparrows destroy even fewer insects than I had 

 supposed. The food in the old ones was almost all corn 

 during the whole year ; green peas (of course bitten up 

 small) were also found in them in summer ; and in May 

 and June, when corn is scarce, a few wild seeds, chiefly of 

 grass. No insect has been found by me in a sparrow 

 between September and March. I have not often found 

 one at any season (particularly between June and March) 

 in a sparrow old enough to feed itself, and have very 

 seldom found any number of insects in one — even when 

 corn could scarcely be got. The food of young sparrows 

 was found to vary greatly ; of those taken at the same 

 time from one farmyard, some broods contained insects, 

 some corn, green or ripe, or green peas, and a few green 

 seeds, chiefly of grass, and in many would be a mixture 

 of some^ or all these. The kind of food by no means 

 always depends on the age of the birds ; the first food 

 after being hatched given to a young sparrow is com- 

 monly a small green caterpillar, but large callow ones a 

 few days old are often full of ripe wheat, and some ready 

 to fly contain insects chiefly. My observations showed 

 plainly that to get results of any value' an investigation of 

 sparrows' food must be made on a large scale ; otherwise 

 very erroneous deductions may be made. For instance, 

 once in June I found in forty-seven nestling sparrows of 

 all ages from one farmyard scarcely anything except old 

 wheat and green peas ; there were only about six insects 

 in the whole number. From such an instance it might 



