have been in great part displaced by the destruction by the martins of the winged insects which would breed the larvæ which blackcaps and garden warblers feed on.
Flycatchers, which live on flying insects, and wagtails and redstarts, which do so to a great extent, are at least as numerous here as I ever saw them anywhere. Some of the wilder birds, as the ring-dove, stock-dove and turtle-dove, always breed near the house, and are not disturbed by shooting the sparrows, having quite sense enough to disregard noise which does them no harm. I may here remark that the sparrows are not often shot in the trees; it is almost useless to try to do so, to say nothing of the risk of shooting other birds by mistake. When a few sparrows, avoiding the buildings, try to live in the trees, the fowls' food soon lures them to their fate.
It seems to me that the numbers of sparrows have long been and still are greatly increasing, till they have become in many parts a serious evil to the farmer. The reasons for this increase are plain enough; sparrows breed very fast; I know not how many times in the year, but many of them lay soon after April 20: they nest all through May, June, and July, and a few have come to build in my martins' nests in the first half of August. But the numbers of any wild creature depend less on its natural rate of increase than on checks, the chief being the want of food at the worst times, especially in the case of domestic parasites like rats, mice, and sparrows. These have no natural enemies in the way of wild birds or beasts of prey to thin their numbers to any extent; consequently they must be kept down by man, or they will only be limited by starvation, and will always increase up to the point which the lowest period of food
