14 USEFUL OR HARMFUL? 



stables, poultry-yards and other precincts of our home- 

 steads the sparrow diligently seeks for. 



It is true that the common sparrows multiply too fast 

 and their numbers must be thinned down. This, many 

 a bird-loving landowner and farmer does in various 

 ways. The late Lord Lilford declared the most humane 

 way was to pull down all the nests within man's reach. 

 There would still be plenty left, in inaccessible places. 

 A humane farmer, the present writer knows in 

 Hampshire, a great wheat-grower, gives the lads round 

 threepence a score for all the sparrows' eggs they can 

 bring to him. Sparrow-clubs save the mark ! are 

 schools for cruelty. In one Lancashire parish which I 

 know the vicar encourages the Jackdaw, allowing it to 

 build even in his church steeple, because wherever that 

 bird is, sparrows become more scarce, their young 

 suiting that bird's palate well. Man has foolishly upset 

 the balance of nature by destroying the natural enemies 

 of the sparrow. Take two neighbouring estates we 

 know in Yorkshire; on the one sparrows, blackbirds, 

 bullfinches and other birds are remorselessly shot during 

 the fruit season ; on the other the use of the gun is 

 forbidden. In the garden and orchard of the latter there 

 is always a far greater allowance of fruit than in those 

 of the former. 



Only where their natural enemies have become scarce 

 ought man to set his wits to work to compass the 

 destruction of a species. 



