EVIDENCE. FROM EUROPEAN PUBLICATIONS. * 337 



[Mr. William Johns, book-seller (residence about a mile from Torquay).] 



[Page 73. ] On June 5 I walked to Babbicombe Hill to wait on a lady ; I saw a moth 

 on a flower; I went and took the flower and turned the head down, and the moth flew 

 away. It was not the one I wanted. It flew half across the garden. A bird (Sparrow) 

 came from the hedge, caught it, and took it to its nest; I went to the nest, and there 

 were five of the top wings of the same moth. It was the large brown cabbage moth, 

 one of the greatest enemies of the cabbage plant. (June 26, 1873.) 



[Mr. Henry Stevenson, gentleman.] 



[Page 89.] I have repeatedly seen the Sparrow takiug possession of the martins' 

 nests on the sides of my own house, and I have frequently shot them with a small- 

 bulleted pistol to turn them out. I have never known them to interfere with the 

 swallows' nests, but the Sparrows are in the habit of using old martins' nests in the 

 winter, reliuing them, and I suppose they think they have a vested right in them 

 the next spring. If the martins build fresh nests they turn them out of those also. 



[Page 91.] I suppose I have sometimes seen ten or twelve pairs of Sparrows at a 

 time all collecting insects from the grass and from the borders for their young, which 

 are under the tiles and other parts of the houses ; they are doing an immense good at 

 that time, but as soon as those young birds have flown and taken themselves to the 

 fields, then they certainly do a great deal of injury to the farmers. The earlier broods 

 are not fed on grain. Later in the season, when the corn begins to be soft in the ear, 

 I think the probability is that the old ones feed the young on soft, pulpy grain. I 

 have not dissected any Sparrow nestlings. 



Speaking only as a gardener, I should not destroy the Sparrow. I think they do me 

 a very great amount of good. (July 3, 1873.) 



I Mr. George Swaysland, taxidermist (residence at Brighton).] 



[Page 104. ] The Sparrow does a great amount of good ; he never feeds his young on 

 corn at all; you see him in all the footpaths in the cornfield ; he is not in the corn ; 

 he feeds his young on insects. I never knew him to feed his later brood on milky 

 grain ; I have killed and examined thousands of them— nestling Sparrows ; I have 

 generally found grubs in their stomachs, or those little beetles that run across the 

 footpaths. As soon as the old bird leaves the young Sparrow then he goes to the corn ; 

 but they bring their young ones up on insects until they are able to fly about and 

 to look out for themselves. Those things have been my study all my life. I know 

 whether birds increase or decrease, and what they feed upon ; it has been my hobby; 

 I have been more in the fields, and I can say it without any boasting, I have lost 

 more time, as some people would say, in the fields, than any other man in Great 

 Britain. (July 10, 1873.) 



[Mr. John Cordeaux, gentleman farmer (residence in North Lincolnshire).] 

 [Page 110.] My opinion is that the good the Sparrow does far counterbalances ttie 

 evil. The time of year when the Sparrow commits the most destruction is when the 

 young milky grain is in the plant. Two or three years ago I opened the crops of 

 thirty-five young Sparrows of various ages, which I took indiscriminately from the 

 nests around my own house, and on an average I found in their crops two parts soft 

 grain and one part insects ; so that even at this season they feed partly on insects. 

 Some of them were only a few hours out of the shell, but others were fully fledged ; 

 they were every size and age. I never destroy Sparrows except in taking their nests, 

 and I do that because I think the Sparrows increase enormously, and I think they 

 drive out other birds. Sparrows about a garden discourage the warblers and other 

 birds. 1 find when there are a great number of Sparrows, one species turns the other 

 out. It is by competition for food. * * * I have never seen a case of actual per- 

 secution, but being a strong and pushing species the Sparrow would naturally eat 

 the food of weaker and less combative birds. (July 10, 1873.) 

 8409— Bull. 1 22 



