Annual Report /or 1888 of the Consulting Entomologist. 343 
necessary attack. I hope before long to be in a position to offer 
some statistics on this head, but meanwhile I may mention that 
in one of the towns of which I am favoured with official re- 
turns, the number of hides passing through the markets in the 
year ending May 1888 was 102,877. Of these 60,000 were 
estimated to be more or less warbled, and the loss to be conse- 
quently at least 15,000^. 
We have proved that all this may be saved with very little 
trouble and very little expense, and the chief thing needed is to 
get information well spread ; it is usually applied for with eager- 
ness by owners. 
The distribution of the four-leaved warble paper still con- 
tinues, and I keep a supply for all applicants ; and I may add 
that the hand-bill published in Nottingham last summer by 
Messrs. Vice, which I have had translated into serviceable 
Welsh, is being applied for at the date of writing even before it 
is out of press. 
Depredations of the House Sparrow. 
One subject more requires a note. The extent to which 
complaints are increasing of the way in which our truly 
insectivorous birds are being driven away by the inordinate and 
unlimited increase of numbers of the House Sparrow. Its depre- 
dations are well-known, but on the above account also I would 
most strongly advise all farmers to use every means in their power 
to keep this bird in check. 
During the past year the grave injury caused by this special 
bird has been brought forward by the Director of the Government 
Experimental Farm Stations, and the Dominion Entomologist 
of Canada ; and the Hon. C. W. Drury, head of the Agricultural 
Department of Ontario, announced, on October 6, that this 
destructive bird was no longer under the protection of the Act 
of Parliament respecting insectivorous birds, and that eveiy one 
was at liberty to aid in reducing its numbers. 
In the United States the grievous injury has been brought 
forward by the Ornithologists' Union with full reports, and in 
detail, and the ornithologist and entomologist of the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture have come forward strongly on the subject ; 
and in South Australia the Eoyal Agricultural and Horticultural 
Societies are offering prizes for the largest number of heads and 
eggs. 
