Nature's Militia ay^ 



crocuses for the sake of the unformed seeds. In some 

 districts he is persecuted without mercy and leads the hfe 

 of an outlaw. Sparrow clubs, encouraged by the farmers, 

 kill him by the thousand and destroy his nests. 



That he is mischievous no one can deny, and that he 

 sometimes does serious damage must be admitted even by 

 his warmest admirers. But if we cannot have our crops 

 without paying toll upon them, it seems better to share 

 with the sparrow than lose all to the grub — the only 

 choice, according to some, which lies before us. 



The sparrow's friends, the naturalists, say that each 

 sparrow actually saves a bushel of corn, for he himself 

 lives for nine months of the year almost entirely on grubs, 

 while his family eat absolutely nothing but insect food as 

 long as they remain in the nest. One pair of sparrows, 

 it is said, take four thousand three hundred grubs or other 

 insects to their young in the course of a week; and that 

 they are the deadly enemies of the cockchafers, which 

 have done a million pounds' worth of damage to the crops 

 in Normandy, is evident, for the wing-cases of seven hun- 

 dred cockchafers have been found under a single nest. 



Finally, we are told that caterpillars to the number of 

 3 54. 3 75^000,000 are eaten by sparrows every year, and 

 that while we see the damage which the sparrow does 

 during three months of the year, we do not see how hard 

 he works for us during the other nine, or what far greater 

 damage he averts from us. We grudge his wages, in fact, 

 simply because we do not understand how vast are his 

 services. 



But a few facts are worth many arguments. Let us see 

 what has followed the expulsion of the sparrow in one or 

 two cases. Frederick the Great of Prussia wag^ed war 



