226 THE HOUSE SPARROW 



better, and is easily obtained, he leaves the destructive 

 chafers to others. The most useful service it does is in 

 severe snowy winters, when, in company with a large 

 number of other Sparrows, it scours the fields and picks 

 up the seeds of noxious weeds ; besides this it feeds its 

 young with insects. It should not be suffered to increase 

 too much, for it does on the whole considerable mischief. 

 The humane way of lessening its numbers, as we have 

 before pointed out, is to pull down the nest wherever we 

 can. 



A word for our English Sparrows. E. Newman, 

 F.Z.S., says: " A Sparrow-hawk left to himself, even 

 by scaring the Sparrow from ripe grain, will save the 

 wages of at least ten boys." And the head gardener, 

 of a large garden which was protected with a network of 

 black cotton only, said: " Nobody knows what good 

 a Sparrow does in a garden. In fields it eats charlock, 

 chickweed, plaintain, buttercup, knot-grass," etc. When 

 the hay lies in swathes in the fields it haunts them in 

 quest of what are called * 'hay chaff ers" ; craneflies, ear- 

 wigs, blight, etc., are part of its prey. "They have been 

 known," writes Curtis of Sparrows in " Farm Insects," 

 " to gorge themselves with the larvae of the May-bug till 

 they were unable to fly." A French writer says: 

 ' Under one Sparrow's nest the rejected wing-cases of 

 cockchafers were picked up; they numbered over 1,400. 

 Thus one pair had destroyed more than 700 insects to 

 feed one brood." Much of the harm attributed to 

 Sparrows is the work of a small Weevil, which is 

 very destructive to many kitchen-garden plants. Mr. 

 Joseph Nunn of Royston, a farmer, writing of the 

 Sparrow during 1897, savs tnat Sparrows do not eat 



