24 THE HOUSE SPARROW. 



Another individual, writing from Gray's Inn, attests 

 to the foregoing assertions, but attributes these on- 

 slaughts to the town bird. The London bloom is 

 specially attractive to the London sparrow, while in 

 gardens remote from London, and surrounding it, plenty 

 of yellow crocuses bloom, and are undisturbed. Accord- 

 ing to another writer, the leaves of the bird-cherry are 

 eagerly attacked by the caterpillar of the pale-spotted 

 ermine moth, during certain summers, to such an extent 

 that the trees become ugly and stripped of their foliage 

 by the middle, or end of July. Although the appetite 

 of the sparrow can accommodate itself to nearly all 

 kinds of food, yet it cannot be denied that it is, betimes, 

 quite capricious. In autumn, the Guelder-rose, which 

 adorns the English thicket with its beautiful red berries, 

 presents an attractive and tempting sight, but birds seem 

 to care very little for such fruit. Evidence, quite cumu- 

 lative in its character, could, be adduced to sustain the 

 preceding statements, but enough has been given to 

 prove the sparrow's destructive propensities. The bulk 

 of testimony bearing upon this matter, which has ap- 

 peared in Nature for many years past, points the same 

 way. 



If these birds are not destructive in a high degree, 

 why begrudge them the grain which they pilfer? Why 

 should the English peasant lad be employed, at a mere 

 pittance, from early morning until the sun has gone 

 down, armed with his clappers, to frighten away these 

 greedy pilferers from the ruddy grain ? Even before the 

 days of "Little Boy Blue," of famous memory, down 

 to the present time, have the same watchfulness and care 

 been bestowed upon the fields of ripened grain, to guard 

 them against their attacks. 



