THE ENGLISH SPARROW: A DEFENCE. 97 



granivorous, and indeed an omnivorous, bird. He is not 

 dainty; he will take anything and everything that falls 

 in his way. As 'paterfamilias he is a good provider for 

 his numerous offspring. Small blame to him ! Sparrows 

 and their young must live, they will not starve. 



Yes, the sparrows will eat grain, and the farmer says 

 they do eat the wheat, and therefore they must be killed. 



But stop a minute. When do they eat the wheat ? 

 Only in the season, and that a very short one, of the 

 ripening grain, as it is only then that they can get it, 

 and when, with many other grain-eating birds, the 

 sparrows flock to the harvest to take their share. 



' Audacious robbers ! " the farmer calls them, and 

 straightway all the blame of his loss is laid on the immi- 

 grant sparrows. He forgets that the sparrows have been 

 cultivating the crop, too, in eating and destroying the 

 numerous insects that infest it while it has been in the 

 blade and in flower, and does not stop to consider that 

 the laborer is worthy of his hire. The sparrow but 

 takes his due for service unseen and unrecognized by 

 the master of the field. Then when the crop is garnered, 

 he is but one of the many gleaners who are busy for 

 awhile in picking up the fallen wheat kernels scattered 

 by the reapers. 



The harvest and the gleaning season over, let us follow 

 the sparrows to the villages and towns. There are here 

 no fields of ripe grain to make havoc of, no farmers to 

 offend, but the birds must be fed. How '. 



