ornithologist’s eyes ; but here it is not intended to go into
the vexed question of the comparative profit or loss of
his existence, as l’egards the gardener and agriculturist.
Very much is to he said on each side, and the bird’s best
friends will do wisely by eschewing any violent partizanship
until far more careful observations— especially by disinterested
and unprejudiced persons—have been made. It
may be freely admitted that in many instances the damage
done to pease and ripening grain is incalculable; but equally
incalculable is the service as often performed by the destruction
of insect-pests. Not only are the young, during the
earlier part of the breeding-season, mainly fed on destructive
caterpillars, but the parents, for their own sustenance
then capture, even on the wing, a large number of noxious
insects in their perfect stage*. Thus it is still a question
whether the benefit conferred is not an equivalent for the
corn and seeds stolen during the rest of the year, and it
must be always borne in mind that a very large portion of
the food of this and other species of granivorous birds is
such as could never be turned to any useful end. What,
however, are called “ Sparrow Clubs ” for the indiscriminate
destruction of this and other small birds deserve nevertheless
to be regarded with the utmost abhorrence.
The great attachment of the parents to their young has
been frequently noticed. Prof. Bell,, in 1824, stated (Zool.
Journ. i. p. 10, note) that a pair of Sparrows, which had
built in a thatched roof at Poole, were seem to continue
their regular visits to the nest long after the time when the
young usually take flight. This went on for some months,
till in the winter, a gentleman who had all along observed
them, determined on investigating the cause. Mounting a
ladder, he found one of the young detained a prisoner by a
piece of string or worsted, which formed part of the nest,
having become accidentally twisted round its leg. Being thus
unable to procure its own sustenance, it had been fed by the
continued exertions of its parents. A parallel instance had
* Particularly Phyllopertha horticola—the chovy, as it is called in East
Anglia, where in some seasons it swarms and is most mischievous.
already been recorded by Graves, who, finding a nestling
Sparrow in like manner entangled by a thread, observed
that the parents fed it during the whole of the autumn and
part of the winter, but, the weather becoming very severe
soon after Christmas, he disengaged it lest its death might
ensue. In a day or two it accompanied the old birds, and
they continued to feed it till the month of March, by which
time it may be presumed to have learnt to get its own living.
The woodcut * represents the sad fate that befel a less
fortunate Sparrow which had built its nest in the ornamental
frieze of the Rotunda, in Dublin. Amongst the materials
used for that purpose, there chanced to be a woollen thread,
with a loop at one end. By some accident the bird got its
neck into the noose ; and, all its efforts to escape being vain,
was miserably hung below its own home.
i
* Copied from the ‘ Illustrated London News’ (vol. iv. p. 36) for January
20th, 1844.