BY A FRIEND OF THE FARMERS. 27 



village, of Writtle, near Chelmsford, told me that the 

 sparrows devoured the whole crop, not leaving a grain. 



Without going further into the detail of sparrows' food, 

 the question whether they are or not, on the whole, useful 

 to the farmer by destroying insects can, I think, easily be 

 decided. They seldom go far from houses and roads into 

 the fields except when they can get corn there, and then 

 for the sole purpose of eating it, as the contents of their 

 crops prove. Going through the fields in May and June, 

 when most insects are given to their young, I seldom see 

 a sparrow much more than a hundred yards from a house 

 or road. Speaking broadly, it may be said that, unless 

 very near houses and roads, sparrows take no insects in 

 the fields. If they did any good to the farmer in this way, 

 the land near their haunts would be worth more per acre 

 to cultivate than the enormously greater extent of ground 

 where sparrows never take an insect. But this is not the 

 case. The greater ravages they commit on the corn are 

 the only noticeable effects produced by sparrows on land 

 near places always frequented by them. 



With regard to wild seeds eaten by sparrows, I do not 

 think that the land close to their usual haunts is percep- 

 tibly more free from weeds than elsewhere. I have not 

 found weed-seeds in sparrows shot on the corn crops and 

 stubbles till late in autumn ; and a few days after half- 

 rotten corn and wild seeds were found in their crops they 

 all left the fields. I do not, however, remember working 

 this out thoroughly to the last in more than one season. 

 The sparrow seems to be 'a parasite on civilization ' 

 which has followed the cultivation of wheat from warmer 

 countries (his rising later and roosting earlier than other 

 birds, in the warmest places he can find, point to this), 

 and living and sleeping in the fields does not suit him 



