SPARROWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4837, 22 September 1876, Page 2

SPARROWS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES.

Sir, —With respect to the opinions expressed by certain scientific gentlemen, referred to in your issue of to-day, as to the value of sparrows, I can speak from experience. The common English house sparrow, far from requiring protection, is quite able to take care of himself, and will become like the rabbits a perfect nuisance. In Melbourne they may be seen in the streets by hundreds, and in the public park there, near the new cemetery, whenever you walk up to the cages where fancy birds are confined you may see them coming out through the wires in large flights, having been engaged, with the boldness which is proverbial in these small creatures, in stealing the food supplied to the show birds. I know that it is stated in Goldsmith’s “ Natural History” that house sparrows destroy a large amount of caterpillars, &c.; but I also know that the sparrow, being a hard-bill, prefers corn. I have seen in the midland counties in England flocks of them sitting on the ears of wheat, and destroying perhaps half the crop ; for when the wheat is very ripe it sheds, and they waste as much as they oat ; and they cannot then be shot, because the shot would do as much damage to the ears of corn as the sparrows. Thanks are due to the Acclimatisation Society for the introduction of the skylarks, which may now be heard singing all day long above the hills round Wellington ; but the sparrows are rapidly increasing in numbers, and will be found before very long to be as great a nuisance in the destruction of all kinds of grain as the bullfinch is in the destruction of the buds of fruit trees.—l am, &c., Agriculturist. Wellington, September 20.