THE HOUSE SPARROW 183 



in surrounding districts. Even the isolated farmstead fostering 

 sparrows may be a serious cause of loss to the neighbouring farmer 

 careful in destroying eggs and nests in the breeding season. In like 

 manner a village or hamlet doing nothing but grumble may rear 

 sparrows sufficient to re-stock neighbouring villages and hamlets 

 where strenuous steps are taken by Sparrow Clubs to lessen the 

 sparrow plague in their districts. But the great fostering places 

 of sparrows are towns and centres of industry whose interests are 

 alien to profitable agriculture and horticulture. Therefore, we pro- 

 pose that every Parish Council constitute a Sparrow Club with 

 power to pay for eggs, nestlings, and adult or fledged birds, on similar 

 lines to what obtained in most country parishes when, at the 

 beginning and up to the middle of last century, the overseers or 

 churchwardens paid for sparrows' heads and eggs. This must be 

 imperative in all parishes of a district. Then the District Council, 

 finding any special damage committed in a parish by sparrows on 

 standing or unharvested corn crops, shall appoint a valuer to esti- 

 mate the loss to the grower or growers, and the sum or sums agreed 

 upon paid out of the rates. Thus village and town residents would 

 be interested in keeping down sparrows and rendering it feasible 

 to grow corn on village allotments and small holdings. 



Village or District Sparrow Clubs may appeal to some persons as 

 most appropriate, but what good are they unless embracing the 

 parishes, and particularly those of towns, where the sparrows are 

 reared, as well as those where they are held in check ? A club in 

 Kent, says a Board of Agriculture leaflet, with less than twenty 

 working members, destroyed during the three seasons (1900, 

 1901, 1902) over 28,000 sparrows. The Witham (Essex) Sparrow 

 Club closed the season 1906 with a record of 36,541 sparrows killed. 

 Three members contributed 3,000 birds each. 



Of course, such results are obtained by legitimate means, such 

 as destroying eggs and nests in the breeding season, the use of nets, 

 chiefly " clap " and " purse," on dark nights around ricks, ivy- 

 clad houses, and evergreen bushes where the birds roost, and by 

 shooting flocks as they rise from standing, ripening corn, or aggre- 

 gations in stubbles and about outlying corn-stacks, as well as about 

 farmsteads, poultry-yards, etc., during the winter. 



Poison, particularly poisoned wheat, is not allowed by law to 

 be used for destroying sparrows or other birds, though Mr. F. Smith 

 in his paper on " The Fruit Grower and the Birds," says : 



" For reducing the number of sparrows the best thing he has 

 known was Harding's prepared wheat. It would not kill anything 

 larger than a sparrow or mouse it would not kill rats or poultry. 

 But the Government of the day brought in a Bill making it illegal 

 to poison wheat in any way. Still something might be done by 

 appointing a certain number of men to kill sparrows by this means 

 by permission of the Board of Agriculture." 



