96 PEARLS AND PEBBLES. 



have my say about those poor sparrows, remembering 

 the words of the gracious Lord, " Not one of them shall 

 fall on the ground without your Father." 



" Doth God take care for oxen ? " saith the apostle. 

 Yea, He careth; yea, and for the birds of the air also. 

 He openeth His hand and feedeth them. Not one — not 

 even the sparrow, despised among thoughtless men — is 

 forgotten by the great Creator, 



" Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, 

 A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, 

 Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, 

 And now a bubble burst, and now a world." 



There is a war of extermination against these birds 

 going on in the North- West, and among the farmers and 

 gardeners in country places. A regular hue-and-cry is 

 being raised for their destruction, and nowhere are they 

 to be shown mercy. 



Now, I would fain take their case in hand and en- 

 deavor to prove that this wholesale persecution is both 

 unjust and unreasonable. 



In the first place, were not the birds first brought into 

 the country through avarice or ignorance, as a specula- 

 tion, by some adventurous Yankee, who "assisted" them 

 across the Atlantic in order to make merchandise of them ? 



Were they not introduced into the agricultural dis- 

 tricts as destroyers of the weevil, army -worm and all 

 other kinds of injurious insects ? 



Yet it was very well known that the sparrow was a 



