SPARROW. 
83 
after the time when the young birds ought naturally to have 
taken flight. This unusual circumstance continued through¬ 
out the year; and in the winter, a gentleman who all along 
observed them, determined on finding out the cause. He 
therefore placed a ladder, and, on mounting, found one of 
the young ones detained a prisoner by means of a string or 
scrap of worsted, which formed part of the nest, having 
become accidentally twisted round its leg. Being thus 
disabled from procuring its own living, it had been fed by 
the continued exertions of the parents. 
The flight of the Sparrow is undulated and rather rapid, 
but if only made for a short distance, nearly direct with a 
continued fluttering motion. On the ground, it advances by 
hops and leaps, both long and short. 
The food of the well-known bird before us consists of 
insects, grain, and seeds, as also indeed of almost anything 
eatable that comes in its way; sometimes it pursues a butterfly 
or other insect on the wing, but it is not very expert as a 
flycatcher. It may be seen in menageries fearlessly feeding 
among birds and beasts of all possible descriptions. It feeds 
its young for a time with soft fruits, young vegetables, and 
insects, particularly caterpillars. It is itself good eating. 
Much has been written on the question of the compara¬ 
tive usefulness, or the contrary, of the Sparrow, as a de- 
vourer of the former-named food on the one hand, or of the 
latter on the other; and much I suppose one may allow is 
to be said on each side of the question, as so much has 
been said: but there can I think be no doubt that the harm 
they may do, even granting it to be considerable, is com¬ 
pensated, and more than compensated by that which they 
prevent. Mr. John Hawley, of Doncaster, has sensibly 
argued the question in the ‘Zoologist,’ and thus states 
the case at page 2349:—T have watched pairs of Sparrows 
repeatedly feeding their young, and have found that they 
bring food to the nest once in ten minutes, during at Last 
six hours of the twenty-four, and that each time from two 
to six caterpillars are brought—every naturalist will know 
this to be under the mark. Now, suppose the ‘three thousand 
five hundred Sparrows’ destroyed by the ‘Association for 
killing Sparrows,’ were to have been alive the next spring, 
each pair to have built a nest, and .reared successive broods 
of young, during three months, we have, at the rate of 
; two hundred and fifty-two thousand per day, the enormous 
