xxvi Journal of Proceedings.
and unduly, the increase of purely insectivorous birds might eventually
inflict quite as much injury upon the gardener and farmer as was popu-
larly supposed to be done by the sparrows. Insects did work of immense
importance in the fertilization of flowers and removal of noxious matter.
If man would only cease to " meddle " ignorantly with Nature, less
" muddle" and failure would likely be the portion of the modern
husbandman. He read a letter received from their member, Mr. F. C.
Gould, who was unavoidably prevented from personally doing battle for
the sparrow. Mr. Gould wrote :—
" I hope the little fellows will find plenty of supporters, for I certainly
don't like the idea of killing them off in order to save a few martins from
the annoyance of having their nests taken. I have never noticed that
sparrows molest martins either while building or in their nests, but only
that the sparrows will sometimes take possession of an empty nest before
the martins return in the spring. I noticed that a month or two ago.
Two lazy sparrows took possession of a martin's nest at the back of my
house, and proceeded to convert it to their own use by enlarging the
aperture, and they eventually made the hole so big that the nest tumbled
down. It is, of course, possible that the martins who occupied the nest
last spring would have used it again this year, but I don't suppose
that the particular pair of birds will, in the absence of their old home,
give up the idea of house-keeping. They will simply build a nest
elsewhere, and, although I am sorry to lose them, some one else will
get the benefit. Therefore it seems to me, unless it can be proved that
the sparrows interfere so much with the martins as to diminish their
numbers, the case against them breaks down, and they don't deserve
the wholesale slaughter apparently advocated by some.
" The sparrow is such a bright, merry, albeit pugnacious little chap,
and makes himself so much at home with us all the year round, that
it is not fair to turn on and discard him in favour of birds which only
stay with us as long as the weather suits them. Some people profess
to think that sparrows have no beauty, but let anyone paint or model
one, and he will find out his mistake."
Col. Russell, in reply to this, said that, as one instance among a great
number within his own knowledge, there was a cottage close to his
place where sparrows were taking some martins' nests. He asked the
man if he liked the sparrows. "No," he said; "I hate 'em, and am
always throwing stones at them, but cannot keep them from the martins'
nests." Thereupon Col. Russell lent him a gun, and the man's little
boy taking kindly to it—[laughter]—cleared out the sparrows. The
martins came and increased until the cottager had 24 nests. That man
died, and the new tenant did not protect the martins. In one year the
sparrows drove them all away. Sparrows sometimes pull small young
martins out of their nests and throw them down. A man once saw this
done near Col. Russell's house; he got a ladder and put the martins
back. In ten minutes the sparrows had pulled them out again! He
only knew of one exception to the rule that sparrows drove martins
away, and that was at Thorndon Hall, Brentwood, Essex, Lord Petre's
place that was burnt down a few years back, He was told that the place