BV A FRIEND OF THE FARMERS. 31 



the character of the insect-food in young sparrows at my 

 place and elsewhere. On the whole, the deduction from 

 the food test during fifteen years seems to be that the 

 sparrows are useless, and that the insects which would be 

 given to their young by them if they were allowed to live 

 in numbers about my premises would be so much food 

 taken, when they most want it, from better birds which 

 live entirely, or nearly so, on insects, and thus keep them, 

 especially caterpillars, down so effectively in the absence 

 of sparrows that, when a chance pair of these come and 

 build, there are few of their favourite sorts for them. 



After the almost total absence of sparrows for many 

 years from my garden, everything seems to do as well as 

 elsewhere, many things much better. Young peas need 

 no protection from birds, young lettuces are not eaten off, 

 green peas are not picked out of the pods (except one 

 year in the fifteen, when the ox-eye and blue tits devoured 

 all the late peas), and the gooseberry buds are not picked 

 out ; the crops of this fruit have therefore been very 

 heavy year after year. Before the sparrows were banished, 

 at some time in winter, the gooseberry buds were often 

 nearly all picked out (the bushes are sometimes killed in 

 this way). This mischief would be done in a few days, 

 when nobody happened to be about the garden ; it was 

 impossible to know when it would be done so as to catch 

 the birds at it. One thing seemed to show that titmice, 

 commonly accused, were not the culprits ; a few buds 

 were always left untouched at the end of every shoot 

 otherwise stripped of them. This looked like the work of 

 sparrows or finches ; they could not get at these because 

 the end of the twig would not carry them ; but a titmouse, 

 with his strong clutch, could easily get at the buds there, 

 hanging, as he often does, back downwards. It has often 



