Home Life in Bird-land

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ...on harmful insects. 1'o those farmers who wish to get the greatest possible benefit out of their land I say, Let Nature alone. Don't shoot all the Hawks and Owls that come on to your farms. These birds keep down the Sparrows, and in an estate where there are one or two pairs of Owls for every fifty acres, Sparrows will not increase. The Rev. Theodore Wood, one of the bestknown naturalists, and son of the late Rev. J. G. Wood, says of 'the Sparrow: 'I used to be rather a champion of the Sparrow, and still have a good word to say for him. I was at one time a somewhat enthusiastic gardener, and was especially interested in growing peas. In 1880 scarcely any one but myself in the village where I lived succeeded in growing any peas at all. Every plant almost, they said, was destroyed by Sparrows; you could see the marks of their beaks all round the leaves. But these marks were really due to the attacks of Sz't0nes weevils, which were exceedingly abundant that year. In my own garden I allowed the Sparrows unrestricted access to the pea-rows. Quite a flight of A Sparrow Colony. 179 them would rise from the beds every time I went into the garden; yet the peas flourished and bore splendidly. To finally settle the point I caught ' six of the Sparrows, and killed them, and opened their bodies. Not one had the smallest vestige of a pea-leaf inside it, but the crops of five were stuffed full of Sitones weevils.' The Sparrow has always been a favourite of mine, and I think I am' specially able to say whether this much-abused bird does or does not do harm. I live where there is a Sparrow colony all round the house. They have nested for as long as I can remember in the thick ivy whichtmakes my home so picturesque; and...