PEKCHING BIRDS. 105 



and barren moorlands, wherever there is a human habi- 

 tation, however humble, all are the same to him, for he 

 is always at home. Everywhere he is the same fearless, 

 independent bird ; but the town sparrow is a much 

 more pert little fellow than his brother of the country, 

 and of the former class the London bird is the beau 

 ideal he seems to have borrowed all the forwardness 

 and impudence of the London gamin, and as for fear 

 or timidity, it has no place in his disposition. But it is 

 with country sparrows that we have now to do ; and 

 though they are rather more unsophisticated than those 

 inhabiting our towns, they are still a fearless tribe, 

 and very amusing with their consequential and impu- 

 dent airs. 



But notwithstanding all that can be alleged against 

 them, they are eminently serviceable to man, and cer- 

 tainly do not deserve the indiscriminate attacks which 

 are made upon them. I believe the benefits they confer 

 in the destruction of caterpillars and other insects 

 injurious to our various crops, outweigh tenfold their 

 consumption of corn and seeds, and I have found them 

 most valuable assistants in the garden in clearing my 

 gooseberry and currant trees of caterpillars ; one pair of 

 sparrows, during the season of feeding their young ones, 

 will kill in a week more than 3000 caterpillars. I am 

 convinced that the sparrow suffers unjustly from the 

 many accusations brought against him by those who 

 have not closely watched him feeding from one year's 

 end to the other, but have formed their judgment from 

 seeing, perchance, a flock revelling on the corn where 

 laid by the wind, or even on the gathered sheaves. 



Such an opinion I met with a lit.tle while since in the 

 Essex Herald, in which the writer, after stating that 



