KINDNESS, ABUSED.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 908, 30 August 1910, Page 9

KINDNESS , ABUSED.

■A correspondent who ,is well-disposed towards the cheery and irrepressible 'sparrow lends to one'of the papers in his 'district an account of the -way his kindness has been rewarded. In the spring, he writes; they were observed in the act of ripping to pieces the first flowers of the year, nn<l my gardener talked darkly of poisoned wheat. 1 reproved him, and gave him a lecture on Ithe economic'value (as 1 had learned from books) of. even a sparrow. "Very well, sir," he acquiesced, "what you say has got to ho done.". After that the sparrows/tore up, all the sweet, peas in :the chitting, stage, arid a new supply of ready-rooted plants had to be bought. They built in the ivy near my. bedroom window, making a noisy nuisance that none could tolerate, arid _in attempting to poke out their, nests u pole waa dropped through the greenhouse roof., One pair built in a stove-pipe, and it took a man half a day to fetch and return a long ladder for clearing out the 'obstruction. Two young sparrows were drowned in the rain-water, butt, arid 200 gallons of soft water had to be run to waste. ' Thi! .vegetable, peas, half-filled in their pods, are being worried now, iiml finally a brood of young birds has taken to stripping tho ripening red currants off tho trees, apparently not for tood but for devilment. In a moment of exasperation I threw, a stone at ono of these marauders (even a bird-lover may forget himself) and brought down, not tho sparrow, but a handsomely-grown sunflower. The gardener keeps. count of these things, and he has been telling a neighbour about tho economic vnluo of sparrows' as creators of employment. at toy expense. ;