wireworm, at any rate when they are travelling through the air.
If people everywhere could be induced to take interest in the preservation of martins, farmers and gardeners would derive great benefit, not only from the good which these birds would do them, but even more from the lessening of the numbers of sparrows which would ensue, seeing that martins cannot be kept without killing the sparrows. In no other way is this most desirable effect so likely to be brought about, particularly in the case of sparrows which come out from towns and villages to harry the fields. Many townspeople like sparrows, thinking that they are the only birds which will live in towns. They do not seem to know that if there were no sparrows, they would have, instead of them, plenty of martins, as much pleasanter to look at as squirrels are than rats. White, in his 'Natural History of Selborne,' said, 'There are few towns or large villages but what abound with house-martins.' The sparrows persecuted them badly in his time, and he had had them shot when they deprived his martins of their nests. Most towns, and the outskirts of London, would certainly again be full of martins, if they had fair play. How, far they would go into the crowded part of London I cannot say, but, a few years back, some of their nests were built at Westbourne Grove. This shows that they could find food in or near the crowded parts.
Among all the sentimental writing about birds, we never find a word about the extermination of the best of them by the worst. Yet the martins are no doubt the most desirable birds to have about our houses, even apart from their utility. They are less graceful in their flight than swallows, but their far greater numbers where they can keep their nests, their habit of nesting and flying in
