BV A FRIEND OF THE FARMERS. 43 



supply will allow. Now people generally do not destroy 

 sparrows, or even take their nests to any extent, less I 

 think than formerly, some because they do not care to 

 take the trouble, others because they are deceived by 

 what they read about ' sparrows and other small birds.' 

 Many things keep increasing the food-supply of sparrows 

 at bad times ; perhaps the chief thing is the greater 

 number of horses used and oats given them, and conse- 

 quent increase of food for them on the roads at all times 

 of the year. If all oats given to horses were crushed, the 

 numbers of sparrows would be much reduced ; removing 

 the droppings from the streets of London has of late 

 years greatly lessened the numbers of sparrows there. 

 Another thing in their favour is the change from the old 

 plan of threshing by hand in the barn, whereby the waste 

 grain went into the farmyard, where most of it was eaten 

 by pigs and fowls, the sparrows having to compete with 

 them to get any. There are therefore, as a rule, fewer 

 sparrows to be seen in farmyards in winter now than 

 formerly, but a great many more along roads, especially 

 near stacks. These being of late years threshed out by 

 machine in the fields where there are no pigs or fowls, 

 the waste feeds the sparrows for a long time. In the 

 part where I live, after a stack has been thrashed out, 

 the straw is taken away a little at a time, each removal 

 exposing a lot of waste corn which, with what they pick 

 up on the roads, supports a dense shoal of sparrows for 

 weeks or months. In many ways, too, the increase of 

 population and wealth in the country promotes the 

 increase of sparrows by supplying them with food, waste 

 or otherwise, in the worst times for them — that is, when 



>t 

 is covered with snow. 



