i6o 



LETTERS TO MR TEGETMEIER [CHAP. xvi. 



it would have an enormous circulation, and would not 

 interfere with your much more valuable standard book. 

 But I am exceedingly desirous to act completely in con- 

 junction with you. To me it would be a very great ad- 

 vantage. I quite reckon on being violently attacked, but 

 it did me no harm before to be threatened to be shot at, 

 also hanged in effigy, and other little attentions. Still it was 

 disagreeable ! 



FIG. C. HOUSE SPARROW, PASSER DOMESTICUS. 



[Miss Ormerod's case against the House Sparrow or 

 avian rat is briefly given in the following summary, 

 appended to the aforementioned leaflet, of which nearly 

 36,000 were printed and issued to applicants : 



" We find, in addition to what all concerned know too well 

 already of the direct and obvious losses from sparrow 

 marauding, that there is evidence of the injurious extent 

 to which they drive off other birds, as the swallows and 

 martins, which are much more helpful on account of their 

 being wholly insectivorous ; also that, so far from the 

 sparrow's food consisting wholly of insects at any time of the 

 year, even in the young sparrows only half has been found 

 to be composed of insects ; and of the food of the adults, 

 it was found from examination that in a large proportion of 

 instances no insects at all were present, and of these many 



