4178 The Zoologist — October, 1874. 



are certainly of no value as song-birds, but that is of little conse- 

 quence, for the naturalist rarely values his birds by the noise they 

 make. In a wild state as well as in captivity they roost, by 

 preference, at a considerable elevation from the ground, but on 

 one occasion when Dr. Saxby was belated on the hill-side, ainid 

 complete darkness and sleety rain, having stopped to trim his 

 lantern under shelter of a wall, his attention was attracted by a 

 twittering to which his ear was unaccustomed. On looking over 

 the wall, he continues: — 



" I saw to my astonishment that the ground was thickly covered, in some 

 parts literally paved, with bramblings and chaflBnches. The sight was a 

 singular one indeed ; the poor benighted travellers had chosen the only 

 shelter that was to be had, and seemed to be woni out with fatigue, not cue 

 of them attempting flight, or even moving more than its head, which 

 always followed every movement of the lantern. I then left them, envying 

 them their comfortable quarters, and early next morning had the pleasure 

 of seeing a large flock, probably the same." — P. 98. 



Of course it would have been impossible to ignore the pros and 

 COHS of the great sparrow question ; but Dr. Saxby touches it very 

 lightly. Scotland and all its isles are smarting under the plague 

 of wood pigeons, whose complete colonisation has been achieved 

 by the extermination of the hawks. When a Londoner, some years 

 ago, recommended that the hawks should be unmolested, the 

 farmers scoffed at his folly, and triumphantly inquired which of 

 the two was likely to know best, the sportsman, the ground-owner 

 and farmer, accustomed to the heaths and the hills from childhood, 

 or the cockney writing in a garret in the Strand. The universal 

 verdict was against the cockney, and the Scotchman persisted in 

 his suicidal course. This is as it should be ; experience is the best 

 schoolmaster, far better than all theoretical homilies. It seems 

 that in Shetland the sparrow appears as a depredator of rather a 

 different kind : there is no wheat, but there are oats and there is 

 barley ; and there seems to have been a futile scheme for raising 

 gooseberries. The sparrow takes toll of barley and oats. 



" I think this is the only crime we can lay to its charge, except that it 

 frustrates every attempt to rear gooseberries, for though the blossom forms 

 well, no sooner is the fruit the size of a mustard-seed than the sparrows 

 devour it, seldom leaving as many as a dozen berries among as many 

 bushes. 



