shut their eyes to its misdeeds, and will only look at its merits.[1]
'There can, I think, be no doubt,' writes the Rev. F. O. Morris, 'but that the harm they may do, even granting it to be considerable, is compensated, and more than compensated, by that which they prevent.'—Brit. Birds, ii., p. 278.
This appears to be the opinion of several other naturalists; and, although one fact is worth a peck of theories, their opinions are not to be disregarded.
THE HABITS OF THE SPARROW.
The various ways in which sparrows do harm to crops are well known to agriculturists; but, perhaps, by no one has the sequence of their proceedings in the field been better put than by the Rev. C. A. Johns (Brit. Birds, p. 202). Sometimes they make descents on the standing corn before the grain has attained full size, and near the hedges the busy pilferers are at work, and fly up in a swarm as you approach them; but when it is quite ripe they do the greatest harm. It is not only what they eat, but what they knock out. A gentleman, who is a practical farmer in Nort Lincolnshire—Mr. J. Cordeaux—tells me he has seen acres which had the appearance of being threshed with a flail. Taking this into consideration, the opinion of the Melbourne (Derbyshire) Sparrow Club—that sparrows destroy a quart of corn apiece during the summer (vide Zoologist, p. 2299)—is probably true. If 30
- ↑ Some people are to be found who will even stand up for the ring-dove or wood-pigeon—a greater pest than the sparrow.
