BV A FRIEND OF THE FARMERS. 29 



appreciable good by eating them. If I am right in the 

 similar conclusion I have come to with regard to insects, 

 any good the sparrow may do is a question for the 

 gardener. 



In gardens sparrows do much mischief, as by feeding 

 off young peas, eating green peas from the pods, strip- 

 ping gooseberry bushes of their fruit-buds, destroying 

 flowers, etc. The question remains whether they do 

 good enough in gardens to make up for such misdeeds. 

 Now, to prove that sparrows are really useful, it is not 

 enough to show that they destroy some injurious insects ; 

 it must also be proved that, in their absence, other birds 

 would not destroy them, at least as effectually. This can 

 be found out only in one way — by banishing the sparrows 

 from a place for some years. My object in letting no 

 sparrows live about my house, buildings, and garden has 

 been not only to protect the martins (perhaps it would be 

 enough for this to kill those sparrows only which go near 

 their nests), but also to get a better test of the utility of 

 sparrows than could otherwise be got by any amount of 

 examination of the food in them. My place is a fair 

 specimen of the country, having flower and kitchen gar- 

 dens, shrubberies, and small orchard, surrounded by 

 meadows, with cornfields within easy reach all round. 

 All birds except sparrows have been let alone there. 



Sparrows having been almost entirely absent for many 

 years, if they took insects which other birds do not, such 

 insects would have become very numerous, and the food 

 in sparrows killed there would show this. Now it has 

 been quite as unusual to find an insect in an old sparrow 

 there as elsewhere. Fifty old sparrows, and young ones 

 which could feed themselves, were killed one summer 

 about my buildings and garden, with food in their crops. 



