36 THE BOUSE SPARROW: 



(during part of which same time only does the sparrow 

 take any appreciable number of them) the martin lives 

 here entirely on insects, and does no harm at all. Not 

 liking to kill martins, I cannot give a list of the insects 

 they feed on, but know that they destroy tipulidas (daddy- 

 longlegs class), beetles, moths, and winged aphides. 

 Biting-midges were certainly unknown in the district in 

 which I -was born and brought up and still live, while we 

 had plenty of martins ; but when these had nearly all 

 disappeared some thirty years ago, the midges came and 

 remained ever since in such numbers, and bite so viciously, 

 that no one can sit in a garden on a calm evening from 

 May till October. Whether these things were cause and 

 effect, or mere coincidence, I do not know ; but since my 

 martins have again become numerous, the midges have 

 nearly disappeared in my garden, from which for years 

 they used to drive us. As they drift with the wind like 

 fog, and one colony of martins cannot clear the country of 

 midges for many miles round, my place cannot be 

 expected to be always quite free from them. 



If martins abounded, as, in the absence of sparrows, 

 they would almost everywhere, they would do an immense 

 amount of good, coursing about over gardens, meadows 

 and fields, and destroying multitudes of injurious insects 

 in the winged state, especially when these are shifting 

 their quarters to new ground. I am under the impres- 

 sion that there have been more complaints of red maggot 

 in wheat-ears since the martins have become scarce ; it is 

 not unlikely that they may take the parent wheat-midge, 

 as well as turnip-fly (or flea)* and beetle which breeds 



* A neighbouring farmer has just told nie that he has seen my 

 martins in hundreds flying close to the ground over seed beds of 

 cabbage, etc. , taking turnip-flea springing, as is their habit, a few 

 inches from the ground. 



