Journal of Praceedings. 
xxi 
“ Numbers of people who would think it most barbarous to shoot martins, 
yet let the sparrows persecute them without hindrance ; and this in the 
long run has exactly the same effect as constantly shooting them. The 
sight of this persecution, which I cannot help seeing in passing through 
any village where a pair or two of martins still survive, gives me the 
same feeling towards sparrows that I should have towards rats if I saw 
them carrying off young chickens ; and I cannot understand how any one 
who takes interest in birds can fail to see the persecution, or to feel other¬ 
wise about it. Around my house and buildings the martins, formerly 
abundant, were reduced in numbers, till in 1869 young ones flew from only 
two nests, one close to a door, the other to a window. Towards the end 
of May, 1870, several nests just built under the eaves of a pigeon-house 
had all been taken by sparrows. The indignation with which I had seen 
this practice all my life at last boiled over. It seemed hard that the 
martins should have no place to live in unmolested, so I resolved to give 
them one, and began to protect them by killing the sparrows. War has 
been waged against them ever since ; I pay Id. for shooting every sparrow, 
as soon as it comes, all the year round. The result has been that in the 
successive years beginning with 1870, we have had 7, 20, 45, 51, 68, 81, 
100, and 110 martins’ nests. They now seem to have reached the 
number that can get a living there ; for the last four years the numbers 
have varied a little, but have not been below about 180 nests. Similar 
results might be produced almost anywhere. The martins, unlike many 
other birds which must go before building, cultivation, and drainage, 
would, if they could keep possession of their nests, increase with the 
population of the country. So much has been written in praise of 
sparrows, very much to the detriment of the martins, and taken for 
granted by people who do not observe for themselves, that many will ask 
1 To protect your martins, do you not destroy equally useful birds ? ’ 
Even were the sparrows equally useful, the martins are as much pleasanter 
to look at as squirrels are than rats. I would not take £10 a year for my 
martins, and therefore would not tolerate the sparrows if they did me good 
to that amount; but I cannot find that I lose anything by their absence. 
“Martins are perhaps the most desirable of all birds to have about a 
house ; being perfectly harmless we cannot have too many of them ; 
living entirely on insects they are most useful. As for preferring sparrows 
to martins because the latter are here only six months in the year, to me 
it seems like preferring, as I have just said, rats to squirrels, were there 
a similar reason. But there is, as the proverb says, no disputing about 
tastes ; I wish to call the attention of those who prefer the martins to this 
subject. The fact is, that these birds have become so scarce as to be 
almost unknown or unthought of by nearly everybody; or, now that so 
many take interest in birds, the martins could hardly fail to find plenty 
of friends. I wish that all the admirers of sparrows could see my martins, 
that they might know how much they lose by their favourites ; if they 
were not induced to kill the sparrows, they would at least, I think, not 
allow the nests of the martins to be poked down and destroyed when they 
build them close to their windows for protection, with a confidence in man 
too often misplaced. 
“ The question whether sparrows are useful to the farmer is easily de¬ 
cided ; they never go far from houses and roads into the fields except at 
certain times of the year, for the sole purpose of eating the corn, as may 
be proved by examining the contents of their crops. If they did any good 
to the farmer at all, the land near their haunts would be worth more to 
cultivate than the enormously greater extent of ground where they never 
take an insect. But this is not the case ; the well-known ravages they 
commit on the grain, especially when it begins to form in the ear, are the 
