The Small Bird Nuisance.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2937, 29 June 1888, Page 2

The Small Bird Nuisance.

[Napier Telegraph,] .

The small bird nuisance is very severely felt in the farming districts of the other Island, and, in Hawke's Bay, in seed time and at harvest, the small " : birds make themselves felt. Their depredations not only sometimes necessitate a re-sowing of the land, but when the crop is ripe they levy a very substantial per centage for the* labor they have been put to in keeping down grubs and caterpillrrs. In years gone by it was next to impossible to grow a crop of any kind of grain in this district in consequence of the noxious insect life; but that pest beina; got rid of by (ho importation and wonderful increase of small birds, some gentle means have now to be devised for ' mitigating the bird nuisance. Poisoned grain is the course usually adopted but it is a wholesale and wasteful way of treating the too numerous progeny of our little winged friends. In tho move populous countries of Europe small birds are shot and trapped for eating;and, if we may trust to an ancient memory, sparrow pie, roasted #4l larks, linnets, chaffinches, and such i: ."I liko were remarkably nice, Now, if boys in their play time in country and town were to devote theirimmense stock' of spare energy to trapping of sparrows —a sieve, a forked stick, a piece "of string, and some bread crumbs, are the implements—they would have gre<tt fun at the time, and a good feed for supper afterwards. It is much better than spinning tops in the way of amusement, and the result ol

the pastime would he beneficial to the wuntry. And here we may add, there it no trouble attached to cooking small birds—wrap the little things, feathers and all, in damp clay, each ono separately, and when the clay is baked so is tho bird; break the clay off to which the feathers will stick, split the bird open and serve on toast. Cooked in this way birds are a great delicacy, and it is a pity public taste cannot be fashioned in this direction, by which orchards and grain crops wouldbe benefitted,