4222 The Zoologist — November, 1874. 



small moth : they once ascended nearly perpendicularly not less 

 than eighty feet, when the moth quickly took to a tree for shelter, the 

 sparrows still following, and after some beating about amongst the 

 branches the moth was again driven into the open, and the male 

 bird, who was first in the chase, commenced screaming open- 

 mouthed (from vexation, I thought). The moth finally escaped by 

 slipping into a narrow crevice in a wall ; the bird clung to the wall, 

 and struck his bill into the crevice several times, screaming harshly, 

 but was obliged to give in, fairly beaten. I was not aware that the 

 house sparrow ever made an attempt to sing. 1 was sitting at an 

 open window when I heard a low twitter, very like what young 

 canaries just leaving the nest may be heard making when half 

 asleep. I had seen the bird just a minule or two before, enjoying 

 a bath and hop upon a branch to preen his feathers. I could not 

 have believed it had I not seen the motion of his throat at the 

 same time. 



It is not often anything good can be said of the wood pigeon. 

 1 was told that they were making sad havoc with the turnips in a 

 certain field; consequently I went to shoot them. By waiting 

 behind a fence I soon shot eight, and then sat down to open their 

 crops. I did not find a trace of turnip in any of them ; they were 

 all crammed full of the unexpanded flowers of charlock, or " runch," 

 as it is called in this part of the country. In this case, then, the 

 pigeons were conferring a great benefit on the farmer instead of 

 the great damage he accused them of, simply because he saw them 

 in the field. It must not be understood, however, that they will 

 not destroy young turnips, as I have known plenty of instances 

 of their doing so. Walking on, I met others coming from the 

 direction of a pea-field, and was curious to examine some of them 

 also. I succeeded in bringing down three, and on opening them 

 found they had all fed on pea-pods : the pods were perfectly flat 

 and empty, and had been broken into four or five irregular pieces. 

 I took the trouble to fit the pieces together from one crop, and 

 found it contained nine pods and sonie odd pieces. What a 

 mixture of good and evil between these two batches of birds of 

 the same species, living in the same wood. I could not help 

 reasoning that as some of us prefer to drink coffee, some tea, to 

 breakfast, why should not these birds have their tastes as well as 

 well as we. They are perhaps more destructive to peas than to 

 anything else, as they attack them in all periods of their growth. 



