26 
FOOD OF SMALL BIRDS. 
that the base of a rick has been found entirely sur- 
rounded by the straw, one end resting on the ground, 
the other against the stack, as it slid down from the 
top, and as regularly placed as if by hand, and so 
completely was the thatching pulled off, that it was 
found necessary to remove the corn. 
That some guess may be formed of the possible 
extent of good or evil occasioned by small birds, we 
annex the result of our own observations, on the 
precise quantity of food consumed by certain birds , 
either for their own support or that of their young, 
remarking at the same time, that the difference ob- 
served in the instances, may be partly accounted for 
by the different quantity of food required by young 
birds, at different periods of their growth. 
Sparrows feed their young 36 times in an hour, 
which, calculating at the rate of 14 hours a day, in 
the long days of Spring and Summer, gives 3500 
times per week ; a number corroborated on the 
authority of another writer, who calculated the 
number of Caterpillars destroyed in a week to be 
about 3400. 
Redstarts were observed to feed their young with 
little green grubs from gooseberry-trees, 23 times in 
an hour, which, at the same calculation, amounts to 
2254 times in a week; but more grubs than one 
were usually imported each time. 
Chaffinches at the rate of about 35 times an hour, 
for five or six times together, when they would pause 
and not return for intervals of eight or ten minutes : 
the food was green Caterpillars. 
The Titmouse 16 times in an hour. 
The comparative weight consumed was as follows. 
