XXVI 
Journal of Proceedings . 
and unduly, the increase of purely insectivorous birds might eventually 
inflict quite as much injury upon the gardener and farmer as was popu¬ 
larly supposed to be done by the sparrows. Insects did work of immense 
importance in the fertilization of flowers and removal of noxious matter. 
If man would only cease to “ meddle ” ignorantly with Nature, less 
“muddle” and failure would likely be the portion of the modern 
husbandman. He read a letter received from then- member, Mr. F. C. 
Gould, who was unavoidably prevented from personally doing battle for 
the sparrow. Mr. Gould wrote :— 
“ I hope the little fellows will find plenty of supporters, for I certainly 
don’t like the idea of killing them off in order to save a few martins from 
the annoyance of having their nests taken. I have never noticed that 
sparrows molest martins either while building or in their nests, but only 
that the sparrows will sometimes take possession of an empty nest before 
the martins return in the spring. I noticed that a month or two ago. 
Two lazy sparrows took possession of a martin’s nest at the back of my 
house, and proceeded to convert it to their own use by enlarging the 
aperture, and they eventually made the hole so big that the nest tumbled 
down. It is, of course, possible that the martins who occupied the nest 
last spring would have used it again this year, but I don’t suppose 
that the particular pair of birds will, in the absence of their old home, 
give up the idea of house-keeping. They will simply build a nest 
elsewhere, and, although I am sorry to lose them, some one else will 
get the benefit. Therefore it seems to me, unless it can be proved that 
the sparrows interfere so much with the martins as to diminish then' 
numbers, the case against them breaks down, and they don’t deserve 
the wholesale slaughter apparently advocated by some. 
“ The sparrow is such a bright, merry, albeit pugnacious little chap, 
and makes himself so much at home with us all the year round, that 
it is not fair to turn on and discard him in favour of birds which only 
stay with us as long as the weather suits them. Some people profess 
to think that sparrows have no beauty, but let anyone paint or model 
one, and he will find out his mistake.” 
Col. Russell, in reply to tills, said that, as one instance among a great 
number within his own knowledge, there was a cottage close to his 
place where sparrows were taking some martins’ nests. He asked the 
man if he liked the sparrows. “No,” he said; “I hate ’em, and am 
always throwing stones at them, but cannot keep them from the martins’ 
nests.” Thereupon Col. Russell lent him a gun, and the man’s little 
boy taking kindly to it—[laughter]—cleared out the sparrows. The 
martins came and increased until the cottager had 24 nests. That man 
died, and the new tenant did not protect the martins. In one year the 
sparrows drove them all away. Sparrows sometimes pull small young 
martins out of their nests and throw them down. A man once saw this 
done near Col. Russell’s house; he got a ladder and put the martins 
back. In ten minutes the sparrows had pulled them out again! He 
only knew of one exception to the rule that sparrows drove martins 
away, and that was at Thorndon Hall, Brentwood, Essex, Lord Petre’s 
place that was burnt down a few years back. He was told that the place 
