Journal of Proceedings.
xxi
" Numbers of people who would think it most barbarous to shoot martins,
yet let the sparrows persecute them without hindrance ; and this in the
long run has exactly the same effect as constantly shooting them. The
sight of this persecution, which I cannot help seeing in passing through
any village where a pair or two of martins still survive, gives me the
same feeling towards sparrows that I should have towards rats if I saw
them carrying off young chickens ; and I cannot understand how any one
who takes interest in birds can fail to see the persecution, or to feel other-
wise about it. Around my house and buildings the martins, formerly
abundant, were reduced in numbers, till in 1809 young ones flew from only
two nests, one close to a door, the other to a window. Towards the end
of May, 1870, several nests just built under the eaves of a pigeon-house
had all been taken by sparrows. The indignation with which I had seen
this practice all my life at last boiled over. It seemed hard that the
martins should have no place to live in unmolested, so I resolved to give
them one, and began to protect them by killing the sparrows. War has
been waged against them ever since ; I pay 1d. for shooting every sparrow,
as soon as it comes, all the year round. The result has been that in the
successive years beginning with 1870, we have had 7, 20, 45, 51, 68, 81,
100, and 110 martins' nests. They now seem to have reached the
number that can get a living there ; for the last four years the numbers
have varied a little, but have not been below about 130 nests. Similar
results might be produced almost anywhere. The martins, unlike many
other birds which must go before building, cultivation, and drainage,
would, if they could keep possession of their nests, increase with the
population of the country. So much has been written in praise of
sparrows, very much to the detriment of the martins, and taken for
granted by people who do not observe for themselves, that many will ask
' To protect your martins, do you not destroy equally useful birds ?'
Even were the sparrows equally useful, the martins are as much pleasanter
to look at as squirrels are than rats. I would not take £10 a year for my
martins, and therefore would not tolerate the sparrows if they did me good
to that amount; but I cannot find that I lose anything by their absence.
" Martins are perhaps the most desirable of all birds to have about a
house ; being perfectly harmless we cannot have too many of them ;
living entirely on insects they are most useful. As for preferring sparrows
to martins because the latter are here only six months in the year, to me
it seems like preferring, as I have just said, rats to squirrels, were there
a similar reason. But there is, as the proverb says, no disputing about
tastes ; I wish to call the attention of those who prefer the martins to this
subject. The fact is, that these birds have become so scarce as to be
almost unknown or unthought of by nearly everybody; or, now that so
many take interest in birds, the martins could hardly fail to find plenty
of friends. I wish that all the admirers of sparrows could see my martins,
that they might know how much they lose by their favourites ; if they
were not induced to kill the sparrows, they would at least, I think, not
allow the nests of the martins to be poked down and destroyed when they
build them close to their windows for protection, with a confidence in man
too often misplaced.
" The question whether sparrows are useful to the farmer is easily de-
cided ; they never go far from houses and roads into the fields except at
certain times of the year, for the sole purpose of eating the corn, as may
be proved by examining the contents of their crops. If they did any good
to the farmer at all, the land near their haunts would be worth more to
cultivate than the enormously greater extent of ground where they never
take an insect. But this is not the case ; the well-known ravages they
commit on the grain, especially when it begins to form in the ear, are the