PASSER DOMESTICUS. 391 



if the balance of Nature were upset by exterminating the sparrows, we 

 might have to pay an unknown penalty ; and, with this in view, it might be 

 wise for the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce, their being kept in bounds 

 but never exterminated." 



This is good advice, for, as Burns says, even of the good and 

 ill of humanity, when fairly weighed, it is difficult to judge — 



" Then at the balance let's be mute, 

 We never can adjust it ; 

 What's done we partly may compute, 



But know not lohat's resisted.'''' 



It is a safer advice than a " Young Farmer's," who says — "An 

 average farm will have 1,000 sparrows; each sparrow will 

 consume 4 ounces of grain daily during the 30 days the crops 

 are exposed to their ravages, thus causing a loss of 25 quarters 

 of grain (about <£25)." He therefore " strongly advocates their 

 extirpation." But he forgets this <£25 is all the 1,000 sparrows 

 cost as wages in destroying the larvae and seeds of so many 

 noxious insects and weeds. He might as well count the cost of 

 his human servants' wages, without the good they do in return, 

 in harrowing, weeding, &c. He says — " In autumn they go 

 in large nocks, when one can kill from 10 to 20 if the gun is 

 loaded with sparrow-hail, also in winter when frost is long and 

 snow is deep. Another way is to get a corn riddle and go round 

 your stacks after dark, where they lodge, and by simply laying 

 the riddle quickly on the stack you will often capture half a 

 dozen at a time." He would also advocate poison, but thinks 

 that " not only game, but human lives are endangered. A more 

 simple, perhaps more effectual, plan is to mix oatmeal with dry 

 lime, which will act as well as poison, and with no bad results." 

 So a " Young Farmer" would give no quarter, but extirpate our 

 sparrows utterly. " The Epping Sparrow Club" (of which Sir 

 H. Selwin-Ibbetson is President) took the same view, for the 

 press exultingly says — " In four months its members have 

 destroyed 6000 sparrows." But they don't say how many 

 noxious insects and weeds have been spared by that, for if 

 you destroy the sparrows the insects and weeds will increase, 

 and if you destroy the sparrow-hawks so will the sparrows 

 increase — in spite of " sparrow-hail." Nature herself is the best 

 judge and the best balancer of the creatures she has made, and 

 those who infringe on her laws will share the penalty, as the 

 sheep farmers did when the mice overran their pastures after the 

 owls and kestrels were almost extirpated. Burns, a young 



