45 



Yet even for the Sparrow there is occasionally something to be 

 said. We have all heard how a price was once set on its head 

 in the vicinity of Baden, and how subsequently the Cockchafer 

 and other insects increased so much that the very men who had 

 sought its destruction offered a still higher price for its re-in- 

 troduction. There is no doubt that they consume a good many 

 insects during portions of the year, though in most places they 

 are far too numerous, and in districts devoted to corn crops 

 the damage they do is sometimes incalculable. In such places 

 the numbers should be reduced by destruction of the requisite 

 number of eggs, not by killing the birds ; if the farmers of a 

 district declare war on the birds and begin to shoot them, all 

 small brown birds are likely to be indiscriminately destroyed as 

 Sparrows. It is curious to find that in Germany the Imperial 

 Law schedules the Sparrow as noxious, while that of Bremen 

 protects it as beneficial. 



The truth is, as already pointed out, that whether the benefits 

 which a bird confers on mankind outweigh the evils is a question 

 which can only be answered by considering the surroundings and 

 circumstances in each district inhabited by it. 



A species may have claims to protection on scientific, aesthetic 

 or economic grounds. Assuming the guiding principle of the 

 Paris Convention to be right, and that in general, protection 

 should be extended for economic reasons to such species as are 

 useful to agriculture, we are still confronted with the very great 

 difficulty of ascertaining the position which a species occupies in 

 relation to agriculture. Now, the chief service rendered by birds 

 to agriculture appears to be, as already indicated, in the 

 destruction of insects, but even this may be stating the case too 

 broadly. We must not generalise and assume that all insects 

 are injurious : some undoubtedly perform useful services. 

 Moreover, insects which are common in one district may be rare 

 in another; while crops, fruit and trees common in one district 

 may not be cultivated or wanted in another ; and a bird which 

 chiefly devotes its attentions to a particular insect in one place 

 may in another partake of an entirely different food. It follows 

 that to compare the economic value attached in different places 

 to any one species is in most cases a very hard and discouraging 

 task, and often ends in hopeless confusion. A statement shomng 

 the treatment of each species by the various laws now in force 

 throughout Europe would be most interesting could we be sure 

 that such treatment was the result of exact study ; but as 

 mattery stand such a comparison would be futile and profitless, 

 for it is impossible to assign adequate reasons for the differences 

 of treatment. Many curious cases can be cited, but we search in 



