44 



for food, the latter being dealt with by game laws. Even as an 

 article of diet a particular species may be held in esteem in one 

 place and disregarded in another. Let us take the case of the 

 Starling. Few care to eat StarUngs here, though in the south of 

 Europe they are considered quite a dainty. Pennant stated 

 that " their flesh is so bitter as to be scarce eatable."* Old 

 Willughby said : " Stares are not eaten in England by reason 

 of the bitterness of their flesh ; the ItaHans and other out- 

 landish people are not so squeamish, but they can away with them 

 and make a dish of them for all that."! And the taste for Star- 

 lings is not confined to Europe, for the inhabitants of North 

 West Africa kill and eat thousands of them in mnter, when they 

 arrive in vast hordes to feed on the ripe fruit in the date forests. { 

 This same bird, looked at from an agricultural point of view, has 

 also caused considerable difference of opinion. On the one hand, 

 the damage Starlings do to cherry orchards is said to be enormous, 

 and they do much harm to the trees and plantations in which 

 they roost in huge flocks in winter§ ; on the other, the amount 

 of injurious insects and small molluscs which they consume is 

 very great, so great indeed that, except in districts almost 

 entirely devoted to fruit, it is generally admitted that they do far 

 more good than evil.|| 



Sparrows are so assertive and so numerous that they have 

 more enemies among mankind than any other species. Wlierever 

 they have been introduced they have upset the balance of 

 Nature. They have been honoured with a separate clause of 

 the American Model Law, a clause which deprives them of all 

 protection. The case of the sparrow is a reminder to those who 

 would attempt to vary local fauna, and shows that introduction 

 of a foreign bird may do as much harm under certain circum- 

 stances as destruction of a species which is indigenous. Those 

 responsible for the introduction of the Sparrow into America 

 never dreamt of the disastrous effect of their action. The 

 report published in 1889 under the direction of Dr. C. Hart 

 Merriam, Ornithologist to the United States Department of 

 Agriculture, is a warning to those who would improve on Nature. 



* British Zoology, Vol. 1, p. 255. 



t Ornithology of Francis Willughby by John Ray (London, 1678), p. 196. 



t See the late Canon Tristram, " Ibis," 1859, p. 293. 



§ At Kammerforst in Germany the extensive cherry orchards are said to 

 escape from the attentions of the thousand Starlings which nest in 

 boxes in the adjoining wood. Facilities are provided to enable the 

 Starlings to rear their young early in the season, and the birds are 

 said to leave the district before the cherries ripen. 



II See Observations in France by M. Florent Prevost, " Zoologist " (1863), 

 p. 8762 ; also J. Cordeaux, " Zoologist," p. 9280 ; also Riley Fortune 

 in " Ornithology in relation to Agriculture and Horticulture," p. 134. 



