224 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



chance of being literally eaten up. The difficulty is that 

 people cannot believe what they cannot immediately sec, 

 and there are very few who have the patience or who feci 

 sufficient interest to study minute things. 



I have taken these instances haphazard ; they are 

 large instances, as it were, of big and visible things. 

 They only give the rudest idea of the immensity and 

 complexity of insect life in our own country. My 

 friend the sparrow is, 1 believe, a friend likewise to man 

 generally. He does a little damage, I admit ; but if he 

 were to resort to living on damage solely in his enormous 

 numbers, we should not have a single flower or a single 

 ear of wheat. He does not live by doing mischief alone 

 evidently. He is the best scavenger the Londoners 

 have got, and I counsel them to prize their sparrows, 

 unless they would be overrun with uncomfortable crea- 

 tures ; and possibly he plays his part indirectly in keep- 

 ing down disease. They say in some places he attacks 

 the crocus. He does not attack mine, so I suspect there 

 must be something wrong with the destroyed crocuses. 

 Some tried to entice him from the flower with crumbs ; 

 they would perhaps have succeeded better if they had 

 bought a pint of wheat at the seedsman's and scattered 

 it. In spring, sparrows are not over-fond of crumbs ; 

 they are inordinately fond of wheat. During the months 

 of continued dry, cold, easterly winds, which we have 

 had to endure this season, all insect-eating birds have 

 been almost as much starved as they are in winter when 

 there is a deep snow. Nothing comes forth from the 

 ground, nothing from the deep crannies which the}- 

 cannot peck open ; the larva remains quiescent in the 

 solid timber. Not a speck can they find. The sparrow 

 at such a time may therefore be driven to opening 

 flower-buds. Looked at in a broad way, I am convinced 



