BIRDS. 
9 
in or near my garden, and nearly every year young ones have been 
taken there, and the food in them carefully examined with a lens. It 
varied greatly, but certainly there were not more insects, if as many, as 
where Sparrows abound. Of caterpillars supposed to be kept down by 
Sparrows, only two small ones, and those in callow birds, have been found 
during the twelve years. 
“ On the whole the deduction from these tests, so far as they go, 
seems to be that the insects given to their young by the Sparrows 
(they were allowed to live in numbers about my premises) would be so 
much food taken, when they most want it, from better birds which 
live entirely or nearly so, on insects, and thus (where not displaced 
by those * parasites on civilization,’ the Sparrows) keep down the 
insects more effectively than the latter.” 
Col. Eussell further mentions that after the almost total absence 
of Sparrows from his garden, “ everything seems to do as well as else¬ 
where, many things better”; and he especially instances that the 
young Peas need no protection from birds, the Green Peas are not 
picked out of their shells, and the Gooseberry buds are not picked off. 
The above observations appear to me to contain an enormous 
quantity of practical, valuable information; and the point of the 
Sparrows driving away Martins, which are certainly insect-eating 
birds, deserves consideration also. 
If those who consider (as I certainly do) that the Sparrows should 
be diminished would look to the matter in good time, and clear out 
nests from their own outhouses, open stables, ivied walls, and the 
countless nooks which the Sparrows are so dexterous in finding out to 
multiply in, they might diminish the numbers wonderfully; and if 
they could destroy the old birds at the same time I would advise them to 
do it, without heed to the false sentiment which may stigmatise the 
act as barbarous. 
No man or woman of proper feeling would willingly give pain to 
any living thing, but the lives of the lower animals have constantly to 
be sacrificed for our own support, and to allow the birds of the air, by 
ravaging the corn-fields, to carry off the daily bread we have worked 
so hard to grow is (to my thinking) contrary alike to all principles of 
religion and of common sense. 
Another difficulty sometimes brought forward is that the Sparrows 
are supposed to be protected by the “ Wild Birds Protection Act,” 
1880, 43 and 44 Viet., in which (paragraph 2) it is enacted that “ the 
words ‘ wild birds ’ shall, for the purposes of this Act, be deemed to mean all 
wild birds." 
This point, however, is met, for practical use, by the provision in 
paragraph 3, where, after specification of penalties for infringement of 
the Act, it is further stated, in the last sentence, as follows :—“ This 
