THE HOUSE SPARROW. 208 



feeding among the poultry, and snatching up the scattered 

 grains under the formidable beak of Chanticleer himself. 

 At seed-time their depredations are yet more serious, as 

 they now come in not simply for a share of the produce, 

 but undermine the very foundations of the future crop. I 

 once had the curiosity to examine the crop of a sparrow 

 which had been shot as it flew up from a newly-sown field, 

 and found no less than forty-two grains of wheat. A 

 writer in the Zoologist* who professes himself a deadly 

 enemy of the Sparrow, states that he once took 180 grains 

 of good wheat from the crops of five birds, giving an 

 average of thirty-six for a meal. JSTow if Sparrows had 

 the opportunity of feeding on grain all the year round, 

 they would be unmitigated pests, and a war of extermina- 

 tion against them could not be waged too vigorously ; but 

 during the far greater portion of the year they have not 

 the power of doing mischief, and all this time they have 

 to find food for themselves. Against their will, perhaps, 

 they now hunt for the seeds of various weeds ; and these 

 being smaller than grains of corn and less nutritive, they 

 consume an immense number of them,' varying their repast 

 with myriads of caterpillars, wire worms, and other noxious 

 grubs. They thus compensate, certainly in part, perhaps 

 wholly, for the mischief they do at other seasons ; and it 

 is even questionable whether, if a balance were struck 

 between them and the agriculturists, the obligation would 

 not be on the side of the latter. 



It is scarcely necessary to say much of the habits of a 

 bird which stands on such familiar terms with the human 

 race as the Sparrow. During no period of the year do 

 Sparrows live together in perfect amity ; if half a dozen 

 descend to pick up a handful of scattered crumbs, each in his 

 turn will peck at any other who comes too near his share 

 of the feast, and, with a peculiar sidelong shuffle or hop, 

 will show his intention of appropriating as large a portion 

 * Vol. vi. p. 2299. 



