FEEDING OF THE YOUNG. 203 



whence it had been taken, unrolled and resettled the 

 remaining little ones, fed them with the usual atten- 

 tions, and finally succeeded in rearing 1 them. The 

 parents of even this reduced family laboured with 

 great perseverance to supply its wants, one or the 

 other of them bringing- a grub, caterpillar, or some 

 insect, at intervals of less than a minute, through the 

 day, and probably in the earlier part of the morning 

 more frequently ; but if we allow that they brought 

 food on the whole every minute for fourteen hours, and 

 provided for their own wants also, it will admit of 

 perhaps a thousand grubs a day for the requirements 

 of one, and that a diminished, brood ; and give us 

 some comprehension of the infinite number requisite 

 for the summer nutriment of our soft-billed birds, 

 and the great distances gone over by such as have 

 young ones, in their numerous trips from hedge to 

 tree in the hours specified, when they have full broods 

 to support. A climate of moisture and temperature 

 like ours is peculiarly favourable for the production 

 of insect food, which would in some seasons be par- 

 ticularly injurious, were we not visited by such num- 

 bers of active little friends to consume it *." 



From similar observations, Mr. Bradley, in his 

 * Treatise on Husbandry/ calculated that a pair of 

 sparrows, during the time they have their young to 

 feed, destroy every week about 3360 caterpillars. 

 The basis of this calculation was, that he had ob- 

 served the two sparrows carry to their young 40 

 caterpillars within an hour, and thence making a 

 supposition that they are employed in this manner 

 during twelve hours in the day, he finds the daily 

 consumption to be 480 caterpillars, which, multiplied 

 by 7, the days in a week, gives 3360. We should 

 be disposed, however, to consider this perhaps double 

 the real number, for, in a case so uncertain, the result 

 * Joura. of a Naturalist, p. 171, 3d edit. 



