FINCHES. 27 



dining on a dunghill. There is a storytelling how sparrows 

 were nearly exterminated in Germany by a heavy premium 

 paid for their heads which enlisted the enthusiasm of 

 every knabe. In Norway and Sweden, too, for one reason 

 or another, I noticed some time ago that sparrows were 

 almost absent from homestead and stubble ; but in the 

 main Fringilla domestica would seem to thrive on persecu- 

 tion. " It would be a pity," thinks one tender-hearted 

 ornithologist, " if the sparrow were completely extinct." 

 I must say there seems but little prospect of this. Only 

 a few months since seven thousand heads were capitated 

 for by one club in one English shire, " and yet there seemed 

 to be but little difference in the number of birds about,'* 

 plaintively observes the Judge Jefferies of that ornithological 

 Star Chamber. No doubt in such cases as this there is 

 a difference, but other sparrows come in from neighbouring 

 districts and fill up vacancies. 



The transgressions of sparrows are many. They eat corn, 

 they shell peas, they spoil fruit, they encourage plumbers 

 by building in ill-chosen places, they bully martins and 

 swallows (a serious offence), and monopolize their nests; 

 straw is drawn from thatched roofs, crocus, as well as other 

 flowers, are pulled to pieces, better birds are driven away 

 and much mess made. The indictment is heavy, and, what 

 is worse, I fear a true bill must be returned in every case. 

 I say this reluctantly, for I love the sparrow's pleasant chirrup 

 as he basks in the first sunshine of the spring, and have 

 seen in him every trait of love, anger, vanity, cunning, and 

 resource that the bird world can produce. He is an epitome, 

 in grey and brown, of natural uncultivated life. 



As for his actual food it is infinitely various. One 

 "Monograph of the Sparrow," recently published, puts it 

 down as corn, green or yellow, and nothing but corn ; but 

 this is foolish prejudice. Mr. Groom Napier makes it more 

 various : " January, February seeds, grains, refuse, insects ;. 

 March green tops, seeds ; April insects, green tops ; May 



