BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF :■>; Adu.m... Cornell University Library SB 995.W33 Ornithology in relation to agriculture a 3 1924 000 090 187 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924000090187 ORNITHOLOGY IN RELATION TO AGRICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE ORNITHOLOGY IN RELATION TO AGRICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE BY VARIOUS WRITERS . ,' ' ' EDITED BY JOHN WATSON, F.L.S., &c. LONDON W. H. ALLEN & CO., LIMITED 13, WATERLOO PLACE, S.W. 1893 WYMAN AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND REDHILL. LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Miss Eleanor A. Ormerod (late Consulting Entomologist to the Royal Agricultural Society of England). O. V, Aplin, F.L.S. (Member of the British Ornithologists' Union). Charles Whi'i-eheao, F.L.S., F.G.S., &c. (Author of "Fifty Years of Fruit Farming"). John Watson, F.L.S. (Author of "A Handbook for Farmers and Small Holders"). The Rev. F. O. Morrls, M.A. (Author of " A History of British Birds"). G. W. Murdock (late Editor of The Farmer). Riley Fortune, F.Z.S. T. H. Nelson (Member of the British Ornithologists' Union). T. Southwell, F.Z.S. Rev. Theo. Wood, B.A., F.I.S. J. n. Gurney, Jun., M.P. Harrison Weir, F.R.H.,S. W. H. Tuck, CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Hawks and Falcons ... ... ... i CHAPTER n. Owls ... ... ... n CHAPTER HI. The House Sparrow. — I. ... ... ... 27 CHAPTER IV. The House Sparrow. — II. ... ... ... 47 CHAPTER V. The House Sparrow. — III.... ... ... 58 CHAPTER VI. The House Sparrow. — IV. ... ... ... 67 CHAPTER VII. Are Sparrows Sufficiently Destructive to Agricultural Crops to be Destroyed ? ... 79 viii Contents. CHAPTER VIII. The Wood Pigeon ... ... ••• 85 CHAPTER IX. The Rook ... ... •■■ ■•• loi CHAPTER X. The Starling ... ... ... •■• i34 CPIAPTER XI. Miscellaneous Small Birds. — I. ... •■• 148 CHAPTER XII. Game Birds and Agriculture — The Pheasant ... ... ... 170 The Partridge ... ... ... i75 Grouse ... .. ... ... 178 APPEMDI.X. The English Sparrow in America ... 180 NOTES AND ADDITIONS I.— Rooks, Crows, and Sparrows ... ... 189 II.— Rooks ... ... ... ... 194 III.— The Barn Owl ... ... ... 196 IV.— The Kestrel and Sparrow-hawk ... 201 V. — The House Sparrow ... ... 218 ORNITHOLOGY IN RELATION TO AGRICULTURE. CHAPTER I. HAWKS AND FALCONS. By C. PARKINSON, F.G.S. The Windhover is a most appropriate name for the familiar kestrel-falcon {Falco tinnt'mculus , L.), for it exactly describes that immobile hover- ing in mid-air which is so characteristic of the bird. If we consider the indiscriminate warfare that is waged against the Falconidae by the gamekeeping fraternity, the only wonder is that any kestrels remain to soar above the fields, espying whole armies of destructive field-mice and voles from aloft with infallible penetration, and killing all such noxious vermin with unerring swoop. It is true that a few young game birds B 2 Ornithology and Agriculture. occasionally fall victims to this hawk, but fully nine-tenths of its food consists of those rodents which cause such havoc to young plantations, gardens, and farm-crops ; and, therefore, the lives of kestrels should be more generally spared. Gamekeepers are wrong in their wholesale con- demnation of all hawks, for there are certainly some species which perform good offices for the agricultural community, while they cause but little harm in the preserves. The wonderful construction revealed in the eye of a bird must be of infinite assistance from afar. It can ac- commodate the sight in ratio to distance even while in the act of swooping down, altering the focus, probably, through the curious adjustment which shades the optic nerve, and by the ex- pansion or contraction of the pupil, which is peculiar to bird-life. Whatever are the precise means of adapted vision, it is evident that fal- cons possess an extraordinary keenness of sight. If a mouse but moves in the stubble it is sufficient to attract the notice of a passing kestrel, as with fatal dart the prey is secured. And the same mice — whether the field-vole or the long-tailed field-mouse — that are thus Hawks and Falcons. 3 habitually destroyed, are at all times the authors of great predations in cultivated ground. They ebb and flow — -so to speak — in different years, in one season infesting the fields and woodlands, and then disappearing as suddenly as they came. These mischievous mammals strip off the bark of shrubs and trees, root up newly- planted seeds, gnaw roots, devastate wheat- fields, and destroy young plantations during their periodical invasions. In one period of three months one hundred thousand field-voles were killed in the New Forest, and whole dis- tricts have been devastated by their sudden in- vasions. It is the chief occupation of the kestrel-hawk to kill such vermin, and he must be reckoned amongst the farmer's friends. The graceful little Hobby {Falco subbuteo, L.,) with sharply-pointed wings and easy flight, is another — and far less common — hawk, which has been needlessly destroyed. Twice only has the writer chanced to see this bird in the West of England. Once a male hobby settled on some kidney-bean sticks in a garden, and on the second occasion a mature bird was in pursuit of large cockchafers flying at eventide. This 4 Ornithology and Agriculture. coleopterous insect {inelolontha vulgaris), is also known as the May-bug, and, as a grub, is per- nicious to grass-roots, young trees, and vege- tation generally. The author of " Insect Pests, and Methods of Prevention," states that the cock- chafer — in the beetle form — feeds on the leaves of oak, elm, and other trees, sometimes stripping the entire foliage. In our ignorance we have well-nigh exterminated the very species of hawk — the hobby — which feeds extensively on this injurious insect. For the matter of that the kestrel has been seen likewise to chase the cockchafers or humbuzz, as it is termed in the common parlance of the West. The Sparrow- hawk {Accipiter nisus, L.) is essentially pre- daceous in habit ; it is the sworn enemy of game preservers, and we cannot be astonished at its destruction by the keepers. Very different in flight from the kestrel, boldly exposing itself in the open, the sparrow-hawk more frequently lurks in the hedgerows and skulks in the shelter of friendly trees in proximity to nests and the unwary prey. From a keeper's point of view there is doubt- less .an excuse for the extermination of the Hawks and Falcons. 5 common Buzzard* {Buteo vulgaris. Leach). A pair that built their nest in a Worcestershire plantation a few seasons ago, did a considerable amount of damage amongst the eggs and sit- ting-birds before both were shot. They some- times attack rooks' and crows' nests ; a number of the latter birds at times unite to mob a buzzard in his unwieldy flight, eventually driving it away ignominiously from the scene of action. The Rough-legged Buzzard is now too rare to be taken into account ; but surely the few which remain of both species might be permitted to stay unmolested for the credit of British orni- thology. There was a time when the Kite (Milvus ictiiius, Savigny) was common even in the vicinity of towns, where they congregated in search of offal, and acted as scavengers ; at other times roaming the country boldly in search of suitable quarry. Two years ago a pair still found a habitat in the Radnorshire forests, but very few linger in the country, and the fork-tailed bird is a veritable rarity. Both the kite and the * I must dissent from this view. I have had exceptional op- portunities of closely observing buzzards v^here the species was plentiful, and am quite of the opinion that they do more good than harm.— 'Editor. 6 Ornithology and Agriculture. harriers are, indeed, too rare to exercise any influence^good or bad — on agricultural affairs ; and as for the Goshawk {Astur palumbarius, L.), we know it no longer. As the ebbing tides leave a dreary waste of sand in the Severn estuary, a stray Peregrine {Falco peregrinus, Tunstall) may be seen in pur- suit of the dunlin or kindred sea-birds. It may be that a noble fellow, with flashing eyes, rests on some protruding pile, sweeping the horizon with restless action, or, perhaps, it is sluggish or gorged with a recent meal, and the breast is stained with the blood of a victim ; but it also roves inland in search of food. At a pheasant breeding establishment in the West, where the birds had to be carefully protected with wire- netting, the peregrines occasionally made most determined attacks, several having been shot in self-defence by the proprietor, who was himself a skilled naturalist, and reluctant to do the deed, A trained bird will, of course, swoop down upon a heron, but the wild peregrine hesitates before so large a prey. Once it was the fortune of the writer to watch through a telescope the unde- cided movements of a falcon where no less than Hawks and Falcons. 7 thirteen herons waded knee-deep in the stream, in furtherance of their fishing avocations. Gleam- ing silvery-blue in the sun's slanting fays, the stately herons looked askance at the solitary enemy, standing motionless to note his action. L'union fait la force, he evidently thought, for — like the Levite — he passed by on the other side. Game of all kinds the peregrine falcons will attack ; therefore the keepers slay them, and few only are left. The little Merlin {Falco CBsalon, Tunstall) is a favourite hawk with sporting men, if only for the plucky spirit it shows in attacking quarry as large and powerful as itself. For this same reason, however, it must be considered as a poacher, and little mercy towards it can be ex- pected from those who rear game. A favourite food of the Merlin appears to be snipe, the tricking flight of which it evinces great dexterity in following. Pigeons are also esteemed by this the smallest of British hawks ; and if it could be trained solely to kill the wood-pigeons, it might be accounted as useful to those who grow beans and peas. The Golden Eagle {Aquila chrysaetus, L.) is 8 Ornithology and Agriculture. rare enough, but the few which remain will assuredly vanish ; for the shepherds on the wild moors, and among the Highland crags, know full well that as long as the powerful bird exists in a locality where lambs are reared, the tender- aged animals are in danger of sudden attack from the cruel talons of the birds.* Not much more than a year ago a pair of golden eagles appeared as far south as Kent, palpably bent on a lamb-stealing raid. Needless to add that one or both were quickly destroyed. The Sea Eagle {Haliaetus albicilla, L.) usually keeps to its eyrie amid the precipitous cliffs of the coast, troubling few by its occasional mig- rations inland. The Osprey {Pandion haliaetus, L.) feeds almost exclusively on fish when it journeys southwards to the English shores, estuaries, and rivers. It does no harm in any direction, and the inevitable killing of each stray visitor is a matter of regret among ornithologists. It is admitted that many of the Falconidae are destructive to game preservers, and it is un- * Eagles kill lambs much less frequently than is generally supposed. — EDrroE, Hawks and Falcons. 9 doubtedly to their special interest to kill many kinds of hawks. It is obvious to all, however, that a wise discrimination should be exer- cised in the matter, and a few of the rarer species should surely be protected rather than exterminated. In no case, unless it be that of the golden eagle, can any member of the Fal- conid^ be adjudged prejudicial to the farmer's interest ; on the other hand, in the cases of the kestrel and the hobby, they are distinctly bene- ficial ;■ they deserve to be befriended rather than hunted out of all existence in the country, and we offer a strong plea on their behalf to all whom it may concern. It has lately been stated by Lord Lilford that an owl is capable of swallowing nine field-mice, one after another, until the tail of the last re- mains in evidence that the bird is incapable of further effort. Four hours later the same owl has digested the meal, and is ready for four more mice. Let us apply this experience for a moment to the case of the kestrel hawk. If a pair is left unmolested during the breeding season, from four to six young birds will be suc- cessfully reared, all requiring constant supplies lo Ornithology and Agriculture. of food, and soon ready to forage on their own account. The old birds, at a very moderate estimate, will consume a dozen mice each during a single day ; and within a fortnight the fledg- lings will devour a similar quantity. In a month's time there will be eight voracious hawks roaming over the corn-lands and fields, killing their hundred rodents a day, each mouse capable of considerable destruction amongst the grain and roots. In three months a single colony of hawks will thus rid the land of upwards of ten thousand vermin, and will yet remain unsatiated. Apply this calculation to the country at large, and it is at once patent how extensive are the operations of the kestrels, and how beneficial they are to agriculturists. And this is the very bird which the heedless keepers are decimating in every direction ; all hawks to them are the same, for they cannot discern between good and bad, even from the game-preserving point of view. n CHAPTER II. OWLS. By JOHN WATSON, F.L.S. Author of " Nature and Woodcraft" Ss'c. A Saturday Reviewer, reviewing a book by the present writer, recently made the following general invitation : — Owls. — Will no one ex- plain to the whole generation of gamekeepers what a stupid and aimless crime is the wholesale persecution of these most pleasing birds ? The Barn-Owl was the best friend of the farmer, a bird of business, who hid in his own pollard all day long, and 'kept other people's rats under at night. Now a false economy has doomed both owl and pollard to destruction, and the farmer wonders why he is over-run by rats. As this general contention is perfectly true, 12 Ornithology and Agriculture. and as I have been honoured by a special retainer on behalf of the owls, I will endeavour to set down these winged mousers in their true light. In many instances the economy of birds in relation to agriculture is difficult to determine ; but no such difficulty exists with regard to owls. Procuring their prey at twilight and dusk, they have but few hours wherein to hunt. This being so, they are in the habit of swallowing their food whole. Now the indigestible portions — bones, fur, feathers — are ejected in the form of pellets, and by a careful analysis of these we get an in- fallible return of what the bird has fed upon. Of these the writer has examined hundreds — I might almost say thousands — and always with the same result : rats, mice, voles, shrews, beetles, and occasionally birds. I once found no less than seventeen recently killed short- tailed field-mice on the side of a barn-owl's nest, containing five young ones. The time was a warm evening in June, and I believe the parent birds had only been hunting about an hour. But of statistics more here- after. It was a wise legislative proceeding that Owls. 1 3 granted a double protection to owls, for of all birds, from the farmer's standpoint, they are the most useful. They are nothing short of lynx- eyed cats, with wings ; and the benefit they confer upon agriculturists is almost incalculable. It must be remembered in this connexion that Britain is essentially an agricultural country, and that if its animal fauna is diminutive it is not the less formidable. We have ten tiny creatures, constituting an army in themselves, which, if not kept under, would quickly devastate our fields. These ten species consist of four mice, three voles, and three shrews, — individually so tiny that any one could comfortably curl itself up in the divided shell of a chestnut. Farmers, how- ever, well know that if these are a feeble folk they are by no means to be despised. This, however, is very recent knowledge ; and through not previously knowing it, many English counties have recently been over-run by hordes of rodents which in many cases have done very considerable damage. The south-eastern counties especially have been sufferers in this respect. Had the owls in these districts not been almost exterminated, they would have 14 Ornithology and Agriculture. been seen at morning and eveninjj sweeping low over the land, ever on the look-out for prey. Those who have studied the habits of owls in their haunts, know how much unnatural history has been written concerning them. The poets have grievously erred in this matter, as well as closet "naturalists." Owls do not mope, nor mourn, nor are melancholy. They are neither grave monks nor anchorites nor pillared saints ; neither are they brooding nor dolorous. On the contrary, they issue forth as very devils, or like evil spirits of the night, and seeking whom they may devour. It is quite unfair of anyone, be he poet or more humble prose-writer, to sum up the character of the owl from accidentally coming across them surprised in the full light of day. Then they will be seen blinking, nodding, and hissing at each other very unlike the wise representatives of Minerva. No, the White Owl never mopes, but holds his revels through the live-long night when all else is hushed and still. Then he goes seriously about his business — and what a gobbling business he does 1 Those who cultivate his acquaintance will know that he Owls. 1 5 has no time wherein to make his poetical com- plaints to the moon. About ten species of owls are set down as British, but with the great majority of these we have nothing to do. Many of them are mere distinguished bird visitors, and have no real footing in the country. All of them, how- ever, whatever their nationality, are eminently useful, and prey, for the most part, upon destructive rodents and not less destructive vermin of a miscellaneous character. The birds with which we are now mainly concerned are the Barn-Owl, Tawny or Wood-Owl, Short-eared Owl, and Long-eared Owl. These are more or less common throughout the country, and are the species upon which we must mainly be dependent in preserving the balance of nature. The Barn Owl. This is the commonest of the owls, and the most useful. When she has young she brings to her nest a mouse about every twelve minutes, and as she is actively employed both at evening and dawn, and- as male and female hunt, forty mice a day is the lowest computation I can 1 6 Ornithology and Agriculture. make. Surely, then, this clever mouser has a strong claim to our protection. It has been already remarked that the evidence gained as to the food of owls is, from the peculiarly con- vincing manner by which it is obtained, incon- testable. So, to show to what extent owls assist in preserving the balance of Nature, it may be mentioned that an examination of 700 pellets yielded the following remarkable results : — No. OF PELI.ET.S Examined. Remains Fou-vu. Bahn Owl. jjigl g.^-S'l 706 16 3 237 693 1590 o 22 o The above interesting observation was made by Dr. Altum, an eminent German naturalist. It may be mentioned that the twenty-two birds comprised nineteen sparrows, one greenfinch, and two swifts. Waterton observes that if this bird usually caught its prey by day instead of by night, mankind would have ocular proof of its utility in thinning the country of mice ; and it would be protected and encouraged every- where. It would be with us what the ibis was with the Egyptians. As is well known, Waterton established nesting-places for owls, Owls. 1 7 and threatened to strangle his keeper if he molested them. He often stood and minuted them by his watch, and upon one occasion he saw a Barn-Owl drop into the water and rise with a fish in its talons. Discussing the bird in its relation to agricultural economy, he has the following note : — " When it has young it will bring a mouse to its nest every twelve or fifteen minutes. But in order to have a proper idea of the enormous quantity of mice which this bird destroys we must examine the pellets which it ejects from its stomach in the place of its retreat. Every pellet contains from four to seven skeletons of mice. In sixteen months from the time that the apartment of the owl on the old gateway was cleaned out, there has been a deposit of about a bushel of pellets. The Barn-owl sometimes carries off rats. One evening I was sitting under a shed and killed a very large rat as it was coming out of a hole, about ten yards from where I was watching it. I did not go to take it up, hoping to get another shot. As it lay there, a Barn Owl pounced upon it and flew away with it." Finally, Waterton considers that he was amply 1 8 Ornithology and Agriculture. repaid for the pains he took to protect and encourage the Barn-Owl, and that it paid him a hundred-fold by the enormous quantity of mice which it destroyed during the year. The present writer can quite confirm a portion of the latter statement from personal observation. Once, whilst spending my summer vacation at a lonely farmhouse among the hills, I remember going out with a man servant to shoot owls. Young as I was, I pleaded long and earnestly that they might be spared, urging that if now and again they took a young pigeon, they did infinite good as a "set-off" by the quantity of vermin they destroyed. The fellow would not be moved by my entreaties, however, as he knew perfectly well that the pair of owls that had their nest upon the beam in the barn had eaten his young pigeons. After lying for some time under a sycamore at the top of the fold, an owl skimmed silently over the trees and entered the pigeon- cote. Soon it emerged with its prey in its claws. " There," said the man, " caught in the act ! " xAnd so it was — of killing one of the largest rats I ever saw ; for the stupid rustic fired and killed it, and this rodent dropped from its claws. Rats Owls. 1 9 were the authors of the mischief, which, if allowed, the owls would have exterminated. In a short chapter it is diiiiicult to state any- thing like an adequate defence of the Barn Owl — to set forth all the evidence in its favour ; but it may briefly be stated that almost every practical ornithologist in the country — especially the men who get their facts at first hand from Nature — are at one in their opinion that the benefits which this bird confers upon agriculturists are incal- culable. Where in game-preserving districts owls have been shot down and exterminated the in- evitable results have followed — swarms of mice and rats in such numbers as to have constituted a plague. In the Lothians, in Lincolnshire, and in the south-eastern counties of England this has been most marked. Even from the game pre- server's standpoint the destruction of birds oi prey — owls especially — is a short-sighted policy, as the two thrive well together. If you would see the mid-da)' siesta of the owls climb up into some hay-mow. There, in an angle of the beam, you will see their owl- ships snoring and blinking wide their great round eyes. There they will stay all day, digesting the C 2 20 Ornithology and Agriculture. mice with which they have gorged themselves, until twilight, when they will again issue forth upon their madcap revels. THE TAWNY OWL. This is the large, brown species which is most- ly found in deep and sombre woods. Like its con- gener, it is a mighty hunter, and an examination of its pellets shows equally interesting evidence. Dr. Altum examined 210 of these, which revealed the following remains : 6 rats, 42 mice, 296 voles, 33 shrews, 48 moles, and 18 small birds. These last comprised a wagtail, a tree-creeper, a yellow-bunting, and 15 small species unde- termined. In addition there were the remains of 48beetles, and a countless number of cockchafers. With regard to the insect remains found in the pellets ejected by owls, they are mostly those of beetles — principally of the genera Agonum, Abax, Steropus, and Carabus. The wing bones of bats have been detected among these insect body-cases. Almost every one of the small ro- dents enumerated is destructive to farm crops, to young woods, and plantations. It may be said at once that this species more frequently takes a Owls. 2 1 young game-bird or rabbit than any of its con- geners. For instance, the writer was acquainted with an individual that developed a penchant for pheasant chicks, and was shot by the keeper in carrying off its seventh bird. I have frequently seen it take very young rabbits, and once a young sheld-duck nearly a month old. Still, these oc- casional misdeeds are small, when compared with the good practical work done by the bird. A pair of Tawny Owls have been seen to carry twenty-seven rats and mice to their young in a single summer evening — a feat surely beyond the powers of any pair of cats. And yet this is the bird which most gamekeepers in their mis- taken zeal shoot, trap, and poison. Upon one occasion one of Waterton's servants robbed the nest of a Tawny Owl, and placed the young ones in a cage not far from the hollow tree where they were bred. The parent birds brought food for their captive offspring, leaving it on the ground outside. This consisted mainly of rats and mice, with a few small birds and an occasional fish. THE LONG-EARED OWL. Twenty-five pellets of this species showed the following results : — six mice, thirty-five voles 2 2 Ornithology and Agriculture. and two birds. Although a useful bird, and one which ought to be preserved, I am quite of the opinion that this owl feeds much more commonly upon birds than its relations. Its ordinary food, however, consists of rats, mice, voles, and occa- sionally small birds ; and in the stomach of one individual Selby found five skulls of mice. As many as fourteen moles have been taken from a nest of the Long- Eared Owl. The reason why small birds oftener enter into the dietary of this species is probably to be found in the fact that it is much more diurnal in its habits, and does not seem in the least incommoded when flying in the full light of day. THE SHORT-EARED OWL. This is the fourth and last species of which it is proposed to speak. Again, the food consists of rats, mice, voles, shrews, and, more occasionally, birds and beetles. Mr. Low, writing on the Birds of the Orkneys, where the Short-Eared Owl breeds, says that he has found in or near its nest the remains of a moor-fowl (red grouse) and two plovers, besides the feet of other species ; and the same writer states that during the breeding Owls. 23 season it becomes very impudent, and will even seize and catch up chickens from the door, and also chase pigeons in the open daylight. A farm servant of Mr. Cordeaux's, however, speaking of the bird in relation to the stacks on his marsh farmstead, thought it " far before any cat " — a very practical kind of testimonial ; and here is .another, although it occurred as far back as 1580 {circa). " About Hallowtide, in the marshes of Danesay Hundred, in a place called Southminster in the countie of Essex, a strange thing happened ; there sodainlie appeared an infinite multitude of mice, which, overwhelming the whole earth in the said marishes did sheare and knaw the grasse by the rootes, spoyling and tainting the same with their venimous teeth, in such sort that the cattell which grazed theron were smitten with a murreine and died thereof ; which vermine by policie of man could not be destroyed, till at the last it came to passe that there flocked together all about the same marishes such a number of cwles as all the shire was not able to yield ; whereby the marsh-holders were shortlydelivered from the vexations of the said mice." This account, old as it is, is probably quite 24 Ornithology and Agriculture. accurate, as there are many modern instances to keep it in countenance. In 1754 a like occurrence is said to have taken place at Hilgay, near Downham Market, in Nor- folk ; while within the present century the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, and some parts of Scotland, have been similarly infested. In all these cases owls are particularly mentioned as thronging to the spot and rendering the greatest service in extirpating the pest. In this connection a remarkable and interesting provision is shown, viz., that when animal food is particularly abundant, owls breed more fre- quently, and the clutches of eggs consist of more than the normal numbers. In this way nature regulates her own economy. I hope that the folly of either gamekeepers or farmers destroying owls has now beerl demon- strated ; and I will allow the following quota- tion by Mr. Charles Dixon to sum up the case between the two : — " As the gloom of evening settles over the corn, the owls leave their daily haunts in the distant woods and farm buildings, and hunt about in quest of their prey. Farmers, Owls. 25 and more especially game preservers, persecute these birds incessantly, without giving a thought to their usefulness. The corn-fields swarm with mice and rats, so likewise do the barns and out- buildings. The usual food of the Barn Owl and the Wood Owl is mice and rats, and the number of these little animals caught among the wheat is almost incredible. Softly the useful birds pounce down again and again on their prey, ridding the fields of their destructive pests, claiming no reward from man, asking only to be let alone. Every year these useful birds are be- coming scarcer; the ignorant intolerance of farmers and keepers is slowly but surely working their extinction, and the mice and rats will soon have things much their own way. Here, then, we will leave the birds to the farmer's careful consideration. Let him watch the habits of these feathered policemen, and convince himself of their usefulness. Let all lovers of the feathered tribe plead their cause with the farmer and the gar- dener ; and, if this will not do, let us have these birds placed more effectually under the protec- tion of the law. This question is one of vital 26 Ornithology and Agriculture. importance to the industry of agriculture, and, all sentiment aside, is one which irresistibly appeals to every lover of birds." These clever mousers, then, have a strong claim to our protection ; so let not idle supersti- tion further their destruction. 27 CHAPTER III. THE HOUSE SPARROW.— I. (For the Prosecution.) By CHARLES WHITEHEAD, F.L.S., F.G.S., (Author of " Fifty Years of Fruit Farming." ) Darwin in his " Animals and Plants under Domestication " has this passage : — " From a remote period, in all parts of the world, man has subjected many animals and plants to domestication and culture. Man has no power of altering the absolute conditions of life ; he cannot change the climate of any country ; he adds no new element to the soil, but he can remove an animal or plant from one climate or soil to another, and give it food on which it did not subsist in its natural state." Man has consciously and intentionally improved many 28 Ornithology and Agriculture. species of animals with enormous advantage to himself. Unconsciously and without intention he has by action or inaction increased the numbers of certain species and diminished the amount of others. For example, the wholesale slaughter of hawks, owls, jays, magpies, stoats, and weasels has tended to produce alarming quantities of rats and mice, the balance of nature having been deranged by the volition of gamekeepers. Rabbits were introduced into Australasian countries whose climatic and other conditions are expressly suitable for their propa- gation, and natural checks against this in the shape of carnivorous enemies are wholly absent. The consequences to the owners of sheep-runs and cattle ranges are simply disastrous ; the rabbits defy all efforts to keep them down. By means of international trade and com- merce great changes have been brought about both in the animal and vegetable kingdom. Thus the native New Zealand rat has been completely extirpated by the large brown rat (Mus decumanus) brought to the island in European vessels. Dr. Wallace mentions in his recent work entitled " Darwinism " that the The House Sparrow. 29 original New Zealand rat was introduced by the Maoris from their home in the Pacific. He also remarks that in New Zealand " a native fly is being supplanted by the European house-fly, and that in Australia the imported hive-bee is exterminating the small stingless native bee." In the vegetable kingdom two or three species of thistles well known in Europe, not- ably the " Canada " thistle, have become natu- ralised in the United States and Canada, and have become so general and troublesome that laws against this and other weeds have been promulgated in many of the States and Pro- vinces. Hundreds of square miles of the plains of La Plata Dr. Wallace says are " now covered with two or three species of European thistle, often to the exclusion of almost every other plant ; but in the native countries of these thistles they occupy, except in [un]cultivated or waste ground, a very subordinate part of the vegetation." The common sow thistle (son deraceus) has spread all over New Zealand in a remarkably short time, having been introduced with English farm seeds. Various other weeds have been brought from 30 Ornithology and Agriculture. Europe to American and Australasian lands, such as the common bird-weed (Convolvulus arvensis) and dodder (cuscuta). The wholesale spreading abroad of weeds has been caused by the unconscious act of man, and without his special interference. In the same way many injurious insects have been dis- tributed throughout the world in the same un- premeditated manner, to the great inconvenience and loss of the cultivators of the soil. But with regard to the introduction of rabbits into Aus- tralasian colonies, this was done consciously and with open eyes. In the same way the sparrow was introduced into America and the Australa- sian countries, though the fatal consequences of this colonisation were not in any degree ex- pected by the sentimentalists, who thought it would be very pleasant to hear the familiar chirp of the lively bird in the homes of the United States and Australasia. In Great Britain the action of man, both con- scious and unconscious, has occasioned an undue development of sparrows in these late yeairs, to the great injury of farm and garden produce. Our forefathers were wiser in their generation The- House Sparrow. 31 and kept sparrows down by means of parochial bye-laws, whose carrying out was charged im- partially to the accounts of parish rates, and in many cases to the church rates. In old church- wardens' books at the beginning of this century entries of this kind are commonly found — " To Joe Willett, for four dozen and four sparrows, IS. id." Both taking the eggs and killing the young of sparrows were religiously enjoined upon the youths of former days, and these birds were kept well under. Churchwardens no longer have rates to spend, and bird-nesting does not occupy the minds and hands of boys in these regenerate or degenerate days of school boards. After the compulsory payment of church rates was abolished, sparrow clubs were formed in the principal corn-growing parishes, but most of these have fallen into desuetude, and sparrows now increase and multiply without let or hindrance. The consequence of this is, that they are so abundant as to be sources of infinite injury to cultivators of all kinds. In the last two or three seasons sparrows have visited corn- fields in some districts from the end of July to September in flocks of thousands, as they always 32 Ornithology and Agriculture. congregate for a period at the end of the breed- ing season, and have cleared the ears of grain. Sparrows propagate in an exceedingly rapid ratio, so that checks of some kind are absolutely necessary in order to keep them in proper bounds, and to obviate the injury to corn crops of all kinds, which becomes more serious year by year. While collecting information, lately, con- cerning the Hessian fly and its action upon corn crops, we were in many cases met with the fol- lowing response : " Yes, there are some pupae of the Hessian fly to be found, but the harm done by this insect is far less than that caused by those confounded sparrows." As a good deal of corn was much laid this season by the heavy rain, the sparrows were able to get the grain easily, although, as is well known by observers, they have a way of getting it out from the ears of upstanding crops. A corn farmer living near a large town stated that " They seem to come out from the town for the summer. I see them in flocks of many thousands just when the corn is filling, and they keep at it as long as there is any left in the fields. I have seen fields of wheat, barley, and oats with scarcely a corn left in the The House Sparrow. 33 ear for twenty yards round the field. Two or three small farmers this year have had men tending the fields. True,- t.ie cost of men and gunpowder is nearly as much as the damage, as they had to fire off every ten minutes, and the sparrows get so used to it that they quietly go into the middle of the fields. One man who had thirty acres of corn put the damage done by the sparrows at ;^20. Another said they had eaten at least eight bushels per acre in an eight acre field. Farmers in many places declare that they must make a raid upon the sparrows in self-defence, and talk ominously of poison in the coming winter. Sparrows also injure farmers by eating the, seed of trifolium incarnatum, which is sown before the plundering sparrow gangs are broken up, and is generally put in broadcast and merely rolled in, so that much of the seed is exposed. And no one can estimate the enormous amount of injury caused by sparrows in picking out the buds of fruit trees during the winter, not only in gardens and orchards, but also in fruit planta- tions away from houses and buildings. They are particularly fond of the buds of gooseberries D 34 Ornithology and Agriculture. and red currant bushes, and of cherry and pear trees. Peach trees also suffer from their depre- dations. As an excuse for this mischief, it is alleged that it is done to get at insects in the buds. Sparrows have been closely watched at this work, with the result of proof that there were no insects present, the damage having been done, as it appeared in some cases, for mere wanton destruction, and in others for the sake of the green sweet buds as pleasant food. In hard winters, when other food is scarce, fruit trees and other trees suffer exceedingly from the attacks of sparrows. When peach blossoms are unfold- ing, sparrows may often be noticed picking off the flowers and pecking out the buds, apparently for amusement. This is frequently attributed to the action of frosts. Just as the buds of black currant bushes are unfolding, sparrows frequently attack them and pull the blossoms to pieces, although there are no signs of insects within. It appears to be mere mischief In the United States the destruction of buds and blossoms of fruit trees and other trees is recognised as most serious, and admitted without argument even by many of the sparrow's friends. There are still a The House Sparrow. 35 few who believe that the bird in destroying buds is only seeking insects within. Fruit is also damaged by sparrows. Ripen- ing figs and plums seem especially grateful to their tastes. Apples, too, suffer from their repeated picks. Peaches, also, and pears on walls are often noticed to have holes in them, which are set down to mice or insects. If they are watched, it will be frequently found that sparrows cause the harm. Vegetable^gardeners know to their cost what terrible mischief sparrows occasion to peas throughout the season, from the time when the first leaves appear to the last pickings of pods. Young lettuces and early cabbages are ravaged, the slugs being often falsely accused. Beetroot leaves in early stages are nipped off ; spinach is devoured when the leaves are young and tender. In short, unless the habits and destructive ways of these birds are carefully noted, no one can have a conception of the losses they cause in kitchen and market gar- dens, as well as in flower gardens, in tak- ing seeds, and in picking off the first leaves of young plants. For example, it is difficult D 2 36 Ornithology and Agriculture. to get mignonette where sparrows abound. Many other flowers are attacked in their early stage by these ubiquitous and almost omnivorous depredators. The almost unmixed evil wrought by house-sparrows has been clearly brought before cultivators by the late Colonel Russell, of Romford, by Mr. Champion Russell, and ofttimes, and in characteristically vigorous terms, by Miss E. Ormerod, who, in her thirteenth report on Injurious Insects, says : — " The observations of the ' sparrow nuisance,' as it is well described, continue to show the same points which are observed year by year — namely, loss from depredations of this bird on fruit-tree buds, &c., to fruit farmers ; on young crops or vegetables, as peas, &c., in gardens ; and deplorable losses where the birds flock to the corn in autumn." All the offences of the house-sparrow cited above are fully and completely recognised by American, Canadian, and Australasian culti- vators. The United States Ornithologist, Dr. Merriam, in a long and elaborate report to the Minister of Agriculture, in 1888, formulates a fearful indictment against the " English Spar- The House Sparrow. 37 row," as it is styled, which was first settled in the country in 1853. At this time it has spread over thirty-seven states and six territories, hav- ing first invaded " the larger cities, then the smaller cities and towns, then the villages and hamlets, and, finally, the populous farming dis- tricts. As the towns and villages become filled to repletion the overflow moves off into the country, and the sparrow's range is thus gradually extended. Occasionally, however, it is suddenly transported to considerable distances by going to roost in empty box-cars, and travelling hundreds of miles. When let out again, it is quite as much at home as in its native town. In this way it reached St. John, New Brunswick, in 1883, on board the railroad trains from the West. In like manner another colony arrived March ist, 1884, in grain cars from Montreal. Similarly it has arrived at a number of towns in the United States." It is calculated that in fifteen years from 1870 the new territory in the United States invaded by the English sparrow amounted to 516,500 square miles, and that the total area now occupied there is much over 885,000 square miles. 38 Ornithology and Agriculture. In Canada it occupies considerably over 160,000 square miles. Its rapid spread and increase create consternation in agricultural and horticultural circles. At the annual meet- ing of the Entomological Society of Ontario, the well-known president, Mr. J. Fletcher, re- marked that "a subject demanding immediate attention at the hands of economic entomologists as one of the influences which materially affect the amount of insect presence, is the great and rapid increase in the numbers of the sparrow. Introduced into Canada but a few years, it has already increased in some places to such an extent as to be a troublesome pest, and steps should be taken at once to exterminate the audacious little miscreant." Professor Saunders, late president of the Ontario Entomological Society, said iat the same meeting that the extermination of the English sparrow would be a great boon to Canada, and the Minister of Agriculture for Ontario stated that " this de- structive bird was no longer under the protec- tion of the Act of Parliament respecting insectivorous birds, and that every one was at liberty to aid in reducing its numbers." The House Sparrow. 39 Australasian cultivators are much alarmed at the increase of the house-sparrow. Agricul- tural and Horticultural Societies are taking strong action against it, while entomologists equally denounce it. In a paper read before a Congress of the Agricultural Bureaux, Mr. F. S. Crawford, a skilful entomologist, divided the various pests of cultivators of the soil into two classes — the Free and Parasitic — and placed among "free animal pests," rabbits, sparrows, locusts, some beetles, certain grubs of beetles, and a few caterpillars. Prizes were offered by many societies in Australia for the largest num- ber of heads of sparrows and of sparrows' eggs. Besides the direct injuries of house sparrows they entail indirect harmful consequences by driving away useful insectivorous birds. They are pugnacious and numerous, so that other birds cannot exist near them. They have been aptly termed " Ruffians in feathers." Swallows and rnartins are routed from their ac- customed haunts and nesting-places. Many a householder will remember that a few years ago swallows' nests were regularly made in corners of their houses, whereas lately it has .been quite 40 Ornithology and Agriculture. exceptional to see a nest. It is not alleged that the diminution in the number of swallows is due altogether to sparrows, but it is certain that they have prevented swallows from nesting as of old upon buildings, and probably in many cases have prevented them from building at all. Swallows are admittedly the most valuable friends of the cultivator. Their food is alto- gether of insects, including midges and the Hessian fly, Cecidomyidse of all kinds, and other aphides, turnip flea-beetles, and such like devastators of crops. Their large decrease is a national calamity. Colonel Russell suggests that the greater prevalence of the wheat midge Cecidomyia tritici, is due to this cause ; and it is not by any means unlikely that the frequent occurrence of hop blights from aphides in the last ten years is attributable to the comparative paucity of swallows, as aphides migrate in the winged form from trees of the prunus tribe, es- pecially damsons, to the hop plants, and from the hop plants again to the damsons. There are two distinct migrations of winged aphides through the air to accomplish this, giving great opportunities to swallows. With regard to The House Sparrow. 41 other birds useful to cultivators, such as fly- catchers, water-wagtails, and others, they are all driven away by sparrows, which do not tolerate other birds near their homes. And with respect to aphides, it may be said here in looking on the blackest side of sparrows that they are exceedingly fond of the larvae of the Coccinellidae, which are the great devourers of aphides in all stages. The same complaint is made of the sparrow in the United States and Canada, that it drives away insectivorous insects and disdains to eat them itself. No less than seventy kinds of birds are said to be molested by the sparrow in the United States, the major- ity of which are species which nest about houses, farms, and gardens, and are decidedly beneficial to the farmers and gardeners. Now, looking upon the other side of the pic- ture, in what way do sparrows profit anything or anybody ? Do they benefit those who culti vate the land by reducing the number of insects injurious to crops? They undoubtedly take some insects to their young ones ; it is believed that this is because other suitable food for the brood is not forthcoming. Several who have 42 Ornithology and Agriculture. watched these birds hold that small caterpillars and larvae are given, among many other things, to the young birds in their early stages. Small beetles, red spiders, and small flies are also found in the maws of young sparrows. It has been noticed that the caterpillars are always smooth ; hairy caterpillars are not eaten by sparrows at any time. Colonel Russell relates that he once examined, in Essex, the stomachs of forty-seven nestling sparrows, and only found the remains of six small insects in the entire lot, their crops in most cases, being filled with green peas andgreens. That sparrows have no appreciable effect upon aphides is proved over and over again by the fact that these insects have swarmed upon plum, damson and other trees close to where hundreds of sparrows have been born and bred. Aphides upon roses in gardens near the nesting-places of many sparrows are never touched by these birds. And in the recent visitations of caterpillars upon fruit-trees of various kinds, the attack has been as virulent in gardens, orchards, and fruit plan- tations hard by the breeding and roosting-places of hundreds of sparrows, as in localities far from their usual haunts. Sparrows may be seen in The House Sparrow. 43 large flocks in corn-fields after the harvest, and close to turnips infected with aphides, but they utterly disregard this kind of food. It is well known that they will not look at pea or bean aphides, nor at the weevils which sometimes swarm upon pea and bean haulm, though directly peas are formed they attack the pods. Miss Ormerod says, in her seventh yearly " Report of Observations of Injurious Insects :" — " I have not received from any quarter a single trustworthy observation of sparrows feeding regularly upon insects ; nobody doubts, however, that they can and do sometimes take them in special circum- stances." Professor Riley, the Entomologist of the Department of Agriculture in the United States, made a most exhaustive report upon the insec- tivorus habits of the sparrow, after long and careful investigation, and his conclusion is that, " We are justified in concluding that the bird will, exceptionally, feed upon almost any insects ; but I am strongly inclined to believe that the deductions made from my own observations will hold very generally true, and that, in cases where injurious insects have been fed upon, it is 44 Ornithology and Agriculture. not by virtue of any insectivorous habit or pre- ference, but by mere accident." Dr. Lintner, the entomologist of the New Yori< State, has arrived at practically the same conclusion as to the naturally graminivorous or vegetarian character- istics of the sparrow, and of its uselessness as an insect destroyer. The verdict of another able economic entomologist, Mr. Fletcher, of Ontario, is that although during the breeding season they do destroy many soft-bodied in- sects as food for their young, this good office is by far outweighed by the harm they do in driving away truly insectivorous birds, and by their direct ravages upon grain crops. There is a more weighty argument against the usefulness of the sparrow, and directly demonstrating its destructiveness, in the fact that most of the laws of the various States in America, framed to protect sparrows, have been repealed, and regulations of cities to the same effect have practically become dead letters. Bounties have been offered by some towns and counties in the United States. In Michigan State, one halfpenny per head is paid for "English" sparrows. If there were any good The House Sparrow. 45 in these birds it is quite certain that such prac- tical people as the Americans would not set their faces so steadily against them, and take such active steps by means of poison, trapping, netting, and shooting to decrease their numbers. Canadians have also ceased to protect spar- rows, and now are compassing their destruction in every possible way. Australian and New Zealand farmers and gardeners are offering rewards and prizes to those who kill the largest number of sparrows, and produce the greatest quantity of their eggs, as fatal experience has taught them that they are unmitigated evils. They have been compelled, moreover, to destroy them by wholesale. " Their most suc- cessful method is that of placing poisoned wheat in a bag with chaff, and allowing it to leak over the tail of a cart along the road. The sparrows, are destroyed by the bushel." The Adelaide poet laureate wrote some amusing verses upon the subject, a few of which may be quoted : — " What means this sadly plaintive wail, Ye men of spades and harrows ? Why are your faces wan and pale ? It is the everlasting sparrows. 46 Ornithology and Agriculture. " We may demolish other pests That devastate the farm and garden, •But spoiled by these voracious guests, Our prospects are not worth a farden. " No more your wasted fruits bewail, Your crops destroyed of peas and marrows ; A cure there is that cannot fail To rid you of these hateful sparrows. " The remedy is at your feet. Slay them and wheel them out in barrows, Poisoned by Paulding's Phoenix wheat. The only antidote to sparrows." British cultivators have waged war in a half- hearted way against these enemies for a long while. They say now that the time has arrived when prompt and drastic measures must be taken to reduce the number of sparrows, and that they intend to avail themselves of all legal means to accomplish this. Seeing that there is such a consensus of opinion on the part of the agriculturists and horticulturists of at leeist half the inhabited world with regard to the mis- chievous and destructive nature of sparrows, the feeble voices of bird lovers and humanitarians, who urge that they should be allowed to increase and multiply at their will and pleasure, will hardly be listened to. 47 CHAPTER IV. THE HOUSE SPARROW.— n. BY MISS E. A. ORMEROD. (Late Consulting Entomologist to the Royal Agricultural Society of England.) I DO not advocate special protection for any birds excepting those which (as martins and swallows) are entirely insectivorous ; but I draw attention (notably in the case of some of the Titmice) to the good which is done by various kinds of small, partially insectivorous birds, in a way which no artificial measures could meet. In fruit-growing districts I consider and bring forward the desirableness of the presence of these little birds, but at the same time draw attention to its being a very hazardous experi- ment to increase their numbers to such an 48 Ornithology and Agriculture. amount as will be likely to endanger the crops if they have, in the absence of insect, to take to vegetable food. Where there is very great presence of any one kind of bird, either locally or generally, whether it be rooks, sparrows, or others, it certainly appears to me that it is desirable that that species should not be allowed to in- crease to the great injury to the crops and the driving away of other kinds of birds. But with regard to the House-sparrow {Passer domesticus) I have not gone so far as it was suggested that I did, and said that " these birds are of no value whatever, and that they do not feed upon or destroy insects," because this is not the case. They destroy some, but these insects, which are principally taken at nesting- time, and which may be, as may happen, inju- rious to us or otherwise, form a very small proportion of their food. This can be shown by post-mortem observa- tions, the results of which I have referred to in various of my own Annual Reports on Injurious Insects, and they have been strongly brought forward also by Professor Riley, Ento- The House Sparrow. 49 mdlogist to the Department of Agriculture, U.S.A. If the sparrow's power of insect de- molition in any way counterbalanced their garden and field depredations, we might cer- tainly expect to find the gardens and crops round homesteads, as a rule, much freer from insects than other places, but no trustworthy evidence has, so far as I know, been brought forward of this being the case. Instead of this, we see damage by caterpillars and other insect pests in plants in our gardens, where sparrows congregate ; and the vast over- whelming mischief they do to the corn crops, &c., is so obviously great that no one who has the opportunity of himself seeing the damage done can doubt that there are few farm insects as injurious as this bird, "the house-sparrow." Speaking now just of my own observations (a few among many), I have seen a field of corn left Unreaped solely on account of the damage from sparrows, which I saw rising in thick clouds from the ruined crop; and I can speak also from personal knowledge of the martins (truly insect- ivorous birds) being driven away by the sparrows where I had no power to protect them. Now, 50 Ornithology and Agriculture. where there are safer circumstances round my house, the martins and swallows are perpetually skimming over my garden. Also I have taken careful measures to prevent my fruit bushes and young crops being ravaged by the sparrows, and most assuredly I have no increase in insect foes, and can distinctly state I have great benefit from the sparrows being kept off; and this whilst my neighbours are lamenting the effects of sparrow presence. From time to time accounts appear of the destruction of sparrows at various continental localities, and caterpillar presence consequently increasing. But before accepting these as evi- dence we need trustworthy details. Nothing is more likely than that (say) in France, where there are small holdings, if the almost peasant proprietors join and destroy all the little birds that they can, that mischief would ensue, — grubs, caterpillars, and nobody knows what insect vermin would probably flour- ish. But just as in our country " the cater- pillar," or, still more inaccurately, " the blight," is a very commonly used word to describe under one appellation many kinds of insect attack, — or, The House Sparrow. 51 to include insect as well as atmospheric or fungoid influences — so under the term " sparrows " there is room for many another bird to be included. At this minute I have by me a special instance of this, where, under the word sparrow, it turned out not to be our contumacious little pest, but a very different little bird, the " hedge accentor ' — commonly known as the " hedge-sparrow," — which was alluded to ; and the good deeds of the one were utilised for the benefit of Passer domesticus instead of for thsitoi Accentormodu/art's. We want to know, first — Were birds de- stroyed, and dt'd evil consequences follow, in notable increase of insect presence ? If so, what kinds of insects were they, and what crops did they affect ? Secondly, was a general sweep made, or was Passer domesfzcus only selected ? In continental practice, where small birds generally are accept- able to many besides those whose absolute needs would make the little birds a welcome addition to the household meal, one would not on the face of the thing expect Passer domes- ticus to be the only victim, the scapegoat, so to say, of the feathered visitors. E 2 52 Ornithology and Agriculture. But, thirdly, and most especially. How do our continental neighbours — (that is, IF they do it) — manage to destroy Passer domesticus so effec- tually ? If we did but know how to do this over here it would save us an immensity of trouble. Passer domesticus might then be quietly put on- the same footing as our own other little birds, instead of swarming year by year ever in greater numbers, and when he has made a long autumn " strike " from such small amount of good work as he did at his (or her) more special nesting-time, and fed the while most liberally on the "children's bread" — and in his still greater waste almost literally cast much "to the dogs" — then he returns to our doors as one of the " unemployed." He does not employ himself in clearing hybernating insect pests, but (we have it before our eyes) at perhaps half the houses we may go to, that out of the window as a regular thing (and verj' often encouraged as a work of great mercy) go pieces of bread, slices of toast, and other forms of vegetable diet, to keep the " insectivorous " (?) feeder comfortable, in addition to his large demands on all that may be accessible in stacks The House Sparrow. 53 and yards, until he can again provide wholly for himself. But, speaking more seriously, with regard to good or harm caused by continental sparrow destruction if it has really taken place in the last few years, the details could be preserved. With regard to vague reports which have been frequently brought forward of great evil for- merly occurring over widespread districts, I have before now stated and publicly begged to be favoured with such information as to enable me with propriety to request the local governments to permit search to be made in the archives, where, presumably, the records and operations affecting a whole district of many scores of miles would be preserved. This information I have never received, but one at least of these reports which I have seen, gravely referred to as being of high practical instructive value, is now before me, a copy of the petition laid, by various French societies, of good standing, in 1861, before the French Corps L^gislatif, regarding the preservation of small birds. My copy was printed in the Times for Wednesday, August 21st, 186 1, p. 7. In this 54 Ornithology and Agriculture. relatively to the sparrow it is stated that "a price having been set on his head in Baden and Hungary, this intelligent ' proscrit ' left those countries," etc., and such evil effects followed that " the very men who offered a price for his de- struction offered a still higher to introduce him again into the country." Here you will observe that it is not the destruction of Passer domesticus that worked such woe, but his emigration 1 The full extract I have given with the address I had the honour to deliver before the London Far- mers' Club on the 30th of April, 1888. But not resting alone (though we well may) on the severe mischief which all can see, and which is increasing yearly with the unnatural proportion of this bird, we can point to the reports that have been successively published giving as a whole the united condemnation of agriculturists, ornithologists, and entomologists of the highest standing in the United States and Canada to the tolerance of the preying hosts of this bird being allowed to increase without any hindrance to unlimited multiplica- tion. Amongst them (as in my own reports) full The House Sparrow. 55 details are given, and I have also in my care, as a most excellent collection for reference, a large number of bottles containing the contents of many of the sparrows shot by the late Colonel Russell, of Stubbers, Essex, to whom we are indebted for careful watch and record of obser- vations of sparrow life for fifteen years or more. The large proportion of wheat grains in these bottles is to be seen at a glance. The following notes give just a few references to American and Canadian reports on sparrow infestation : — On April 21st, 1885, the Committee of the American Ornithologists' Union, after investi- gations extending over a large part of the United States and Canada, gave at Washington as their verdict (from the results of the inquiry) that they considered "all existing laws protecting the sparrow should be repealed, and that bounties be offered for its destruction," besides much very condemnatory information, based on in- vestigation. In the report of Dr. C. Merriman (Ornitholo- gist to the Department of Agriculture, U.S.A.), published in 1887, he gives details of the bane- ful effects of the presence of this bird, and 56 Ornithology and Agriculture. officially recommends the immediate repeal of all existing laws which afford protection to this pest. In 1888 Professor C. V. Riley (Entomologist to the U.S.A. Department of Agriculture) published a paper containing a communication on the nature of the contents of sparrows' stomachs, laid before the Biological Society of Washington — of which the heading, "The British Pest: Worthlessness of the Sparrow as an Insect- Killer," speaks for itself. In the same year, at the annual meeting in Canada of the Entomological Society of Ontario, Mr. J. Fletcher (the Dominion Entomologist of Canada) spoke of the great injuries inflicted by the English sparrow (whose destruction he strongly advocated), when the Minister of Agri- culture, who attended the meeting as head of the Agricultural Department of Ontario, expressly to show the importance attached by the Govern- ment to the work of the Society, stated in reply, " That this destructive bird was no longer under the protection of the Act of Parliament respecting insectivorous birds, and that every- one was at liberty to aid in reducing its numbers." This was on October 6th, 1888. The House Sparrow. 57 But, in truth, I believe the matter lies in a nut- shell. If there were only an average of sparrows with the other birds, I see no reason for disturb- ing them ; but where they exist in such flocks that the crops are greatly lessened by their depre- dations, and the truly insectivorous birds driven away, then I quite think that the farmers' motto should be that of the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo — " Up, lads, and at 'em ! " CHAPTER V. THE HOUSE SPARROW.— HI. BY THE REV. F. C. MORRIS, M.A. {Author of "A History of British Birds.'') The very name of the sparrow, his Latin name, ought to have secured him from the ignorant persecution he has been exposed to all along, and especially of late. His natural haunt is where men have their home, and if he ever emi- grates it is only to go along with them whither- soever they may direct their steps. The damage, such as it is, which they do to crops, is almost invariably and exclusively confined to those that are grown near to the dwelling-places of men, where there is, in many cases, no corn to speak of that they can ever be accused of pilfering. It is a pity that persons who know little or The House Sparrow. 59 nothing of the country life of the sparrow, should at one and the same time act the part of jury and judge, and then proceed to condemn him, sen- tence him, and execute him, on ex parte evidence. Those who write without due knowledge on any such matters, seem to make it a rule to forget that much that they claim to have discovered has already been admitted by those on the other side. I, for one, have allowed, and that more than once, that the sparrow does some harm at times, occasionally much harm, but only excep- tionally and very locally ; my own experience of damage done by him being to that effect. There are not many persons, if any, who have had better opportunities than I have had for seeing both sides of the shield in the warfare that has been carried on. Mr. J. H. Gurney (joint author of the book on " The House-sparrow" ) begins by telling us of some farmer in Cheshire, who told him that, in his opinion, sparrows and other small birds do damage throughout the whole country to the extent of £'j'jo,og/\. worth of corn in the year. He seems to be one of those who " love to be particular," even down to the miser- able £^. On the face of it it could be but the 6o Ornithology and Agriculture. merest guess. Nothing could be easier than to make such. Even if we were to grant it, I shall show before I have done that the benefit these birds are of infinitely outweighs any amount of loss of the kind. Furthermore, this said farmer was one of the members of a " sparrow club," who gave six- pence a dozen — very likely in the breeding season when the poor things had young in their nests — for so-called sparrow heads, with the result that several thousands of the birds, of whatever kind they were, were sacrificed for this bloodstained head-money. He also tells us that sparrows have a penchant for plucking off flowers in our gardens. He argues, as is the wont of such per- sons, from the particular to the general. There is just a modicum of truth in it. The sparrows have two or three times at the most thus picked off some of the flowers in my garden in the more than thirty years I have been rector here. I never said them nay. At the most I would just scare them off". Again,he tells us that he has him- self found from twenty to twenty-five grains of corn in a sparrow's crop. Very likely, but when was it ? On his own showing, in the month of The House Sparrow. 6i November, after the harvest, when such are picked up as are lying about on the surface or on a high road, shaken out from the perhaps over- ripe corn that has been led : or, it may be, already partaken of by the horse ; or even in the stackyards after the grain has been thrashed out and more or less left scattered on the ground. From these most slender premises he argues that every sparrow eats 5,475 grains of good corn in the year. He says he understands that the birds work their way through a whole field in regular progression. Out upon such "understanding" as this, flatly contradicted by himself Also, he tells us that " it is said " that they prefer a wheat stack. Very likely, again, if they had the chance ; but how is it that if his knowledge of the ways of the sparrow is so great he could not tell us such a thing as this on his own ■ knowledge. One remark of Mr. J. H. Gurney happens to be right. He says that "in some instances," and especially near towns, it is that the greatest damage is done. And, again, that this was the case in a field " in the corner nearest to the vil- lage ; " and that an adjoining acre the birds 62 Ornithology and Agriculture. •• had not meddled with." Why, this is the very thing I told him years ago, in one of my "Letters to the Times," which I shall quote, namely, that -it is in such spots, and almost exclusively in such, that anything like real damage is done by the birds at all. In such places a " tenter " should be employed to scare them away with a rattle. Once more : he goes on to tell us that the young are fed on " unripe corn." Where, I should like to know, is there any unripe corn to feed them with all the very early spring and early summer months, while they are on with one or other of the two or three early broods, or even it may be a fourth, afterwards up to August? Even he, however, here admits that one young sparrow is fed with fifteen cater- pillars in a day. Very well. There are five or six young birds in each nest, say five. This gives seventy-five caterpillars a day for one nest, beside what the parent birds eat. Multiply this by ninety, the number of days that may be allowed for the first two or three, not to say four broods in, say, only three months, and we have 6,750 insects with which the broods of one pair of sparrows are fed. Multiply this again by the The House Sparrow. 63 3,500 sparrows destroyed by only one " sparrow club" — perhaps not half the total number in the parish — and this gives us 23,625,000. Mul- tiply this again by the 15,000 parishes in England and we have a "grand total" of 354,375,000,000 insects made away with by sparrows only in this country. And this, too, only as taken for the young, and leaving out of the calculation all the insects eaten by the parents or other old birds on their own account. Even Mr. J. H. Gurney, junior, himself admits that allowing only 800 young sparrows to be hatched in each of the 800 parishes of Norfolk this gives us a total of 640,000 young, and if these are fed for ninety days the number that three broods will require to be fed on caterpil- lars, there would be 4,320,000,000 of them eaten in that one county alone by sparrows. But multiply this by the 117 counties in the United Kingdom, and we have a total of, say, 505,440,000,000. He allows that Professor Newton has stated that he has found their bills " crammed " with a destructive chafer, and that Mr. John Curtis, the eminent entomologist (whom I had the pleasure of knowing), had 64 Ornithology and Agriculture. found them so gorged with them as to be unable to fly. He also allows the good the sparrows do in keeping down the seeds of noxious weeds ; and he tells us of a farmer who thought his crop was ruined, but that it was visited by " such swarms of sparrows as he had never seen before," and so his crop was saved by them. Likewise that 321 seeds of the chickweed were found in the crop of one sparrow, and 147 in that of another, and these only a portion of many more. Fas est et ab hoste doceri. In conclusion, I should like to put in the following evidence, being among that given before a Committee of the House of Commons on the Wild Birds' Protection Act, with the Hon. Auberon Herbert, M.P., in the chair. A paper handed in by Mr. Harting. I. As regards the fecundity of insects, consult an article by Dr. Gloger, in the " Bulletin of the Society for the Protection of Animals," vol. vii. p. 32?. Example of facts proved : In one single Phlcestribus, an insect which infests the olive, 2,000 eggs were counted. To stop the ravages of another insect, Phalcena monacha, an attempt was made to collect the eggs. In one The House Sparrow. 65 day, in one single verderie, four bushels, or about 1 80,000,000 eggs were collected. 2. As regards the depredations of insects, con- sult a pamphlet by M. Bazin, entitled " Notice on an Insect which has caused the greatest Ravages amongst our Standing Crops," published in Paris in 1856. See also the "Ami des Sciences " of 9th August, 1857 ; Baudrillart, " Dictionnaire des Forets v. Insects"; Gadirler, " Police des Chasses," p. 172 ; and Tschudi, "Des Insectes et des Oiseaux," pp. 14 and 15. The following are examples of facts proved and results estimated : {a) The value of cereals des- troyed in one year in one of the eastern depart- ments, estimated at 4,000,000 francs (;^i6o,ooo). (Jj) Out of 504 grains of rape, only 296 grains were healthy ; the remainder were eaten up by insects, or injured by their contamination. There was a consequent loss in oil of 32'8 per cent. In a harvest which produced .^180, it was necessary to calculate a loss of ;^io8, which, could it have been avoided, would have produced ;^288 {c) Acres of wood were ordered to be felled be- cause the trees were perishing from the attacks of insects. F 66 Ornithology and Agriculture. 3. As regards the destruction of insects by birds, consult M. Geoffrey St. Hilaire, "Acclimation des Animaux Utiles," pp. 122 and 125 (note) ; Tschudi, "Les Insectes Nuisibles at les Oiseaux," p. 24 ; and Dr. Gloger op. cit., pp. 305, 307. The following are examples of facts proved, and re- sults arrived at : (b) Under one sparrow's nest the rejected wing-cases of cockchafers were picked up ; they numbered over 1,400. Thus one pair of sparrows had destroyed more than 700 in- sects to feed a single brood, {a) In the vicinity of Baden a price was set on the head of the sparrow, and soon not a sparrow was to be found in the neighbourhood. It was sub- sequently discovered that this bird alone could successfully contend against the cockchafers and other winged insects, and the very men who had offered a price for his destruction offered a still higher price to introduce him again into the country. 67 CHAPTER VI. THE HOUSE SPARROW.— IV. BY THE REV. THEODORE WOOD, F.E.S. (Author of" Our Bird Allies" " Our Insect Allies, " Our Insect Enemies^ " The Farmers Friend's and Foes," etc., etc.) If among the feathered inhabitants of our islands there be a bird with a bad character, that bird is most undoubtedly the common House Sparrow. From all quarters there rises a chorus of execration against it. Farmers and gardeners unite in abusing it. They accuse it of number- less crimes. They regard it as a monster of iniquity. They freely advocate its partial or even complete extermination. And by organised, as well as by individual efforts, that policy has been largely carried into effect. We hear of " sparrow clubs," which pay so much per head for the F 2 68 Ornithology and Agriculture. birds themselves, and so much per dozen for their eggs. We read of farmers who scatter poisoned grain in severe weather — a sort of re- finement of cruelty — with the result of destroy- ing, not sparrows alone, but numbers of other small birds with them. We all know the fruit- grower who cannot believe that his garden or his orchard is in safety unless it is incessantly promenaded by a man with a gun. And still the cry is for further slaughter. Is this slaughter, necessary ? In order to answer that question, we must glance for a moment at the various counts upon which the sparrow is arraigned. 1. It is accused of stealing corn, alike from the field, the rick, and the poultry-yard ; and a well-known Cheshire agriculturist — Mr. Bell — has lately estimated the annual loss of wheat due to the attacks of sparrows in England alone at ;^2,o89,3S3 ! 2. It is further accused of shelling out grow- ing peas from their pods, and, in many cases, even of destroying the plants themselves almost immediately upon their appearance above the ground. The House Sparrow. 69 3. It is also said to damage crocuses, pinks, primroses, and other garden plants by plucking the blossoms or tearing them to pieces, ap- parently out of wanton mischief. 4. It is charged with driving martins from their nests, and so expelling strictly insectivorous birds from districts in which their services are specially valuable. Besides these, there are one or two minor counts, of no special importance. This indictment appears sufficiently for- midable ; but the case for the defence must be set against it. And this consists of three con- tentions : — (i.) That some of the above accusations are greatly exaggerated. (2.) That others are wholly untrue. (3.) That the undeniable mischief, large as it is, of which the sparrow is at times the cause, is more than counterbalanced by the services ren- dered by the bird in other ways. Let us examine these three contentions in turn : — (i.) Taking the average price of wheat at thirty shillings per quarter, Mr. Bell's estimate 7© Ornithology and Agriculture. requires us to believe that 1,392,904 quarters of this grain above, or 3 1 3,404 tons, are annually swallowed by English sparrows ! In other words, these birds dispose of nearly one-sixth of all the wheat grown in England. " Prodigious !" The statement is absurd, on the faee of it. Probably Mr. Bell, like many farmers before him, has based his calculations upon the amount of damage wrought in one particular field — a damage which is often very great, and also most deceptive. For sparrows are by no means equally distributed over all parts of our corn- growing districts. They congregate near trees, or houses, or in such spots as may be convenient for nesting and shelter, and never travel far afield in search of food ; so that their mischief is concentrated upon a comparatively small area of ground. Thus certain fields, in the neighbourhood of trees or buildings, may be systematically robbed of a large proportion of their produce, while others, at a little distance, as invariably escape. Clearly, then, it is mis- leading and unfair to take a particular field as a sample, and to build up a startling array of figures upon the exceptional basis which it affords. The House Sparrow. 71 Much of the evidence against the sparrow on this particular count, again, has been furnished by the examination of the crops of slaugh- tered specimens. This -evidence, at iirst sight, may seem unexceptionable. But it is weak and deficient in this respect, that, although it may establish the fact that sparrows feed largely upon corn, it altogether fails to show where that corn comes from. Now a sparrow may fre- quently obtain a hearty meal of corn without robbing the farmer or the poultry-keeper at all. At harvest-time, for instance, and during the gleaning season which succeeds it, a large quan- tity of grain lies scattered upon the ground ; perfectly useless to the farmer, quite beyond the power even of the gleaners to gather up. In devouring this grain the bird is performing not a mischievous, but a positively beneficial act, since, if allowed to remain, it would shortly sprout, and tend to exhaust the land. Yet if a sparrow, having feasted upon such grain, is shot and opened, the contents of his crop are brought forward as undeniable evidence that he has been robbing the farmer ! Sparrows extract a considerable amount of 72 Ornithology and Agriculture. grain, too, from horse-droppings, and they also devour no small quantity which has been brought out from the , ricks, not by the birds themselves, but by the rats. So that, even although sparrow after sparrow may be ex- amined and found to contain grain, it by no means follows that that grain has been stolen from the farmer. On the count of destroying garden-flowers the sparrow must plead guilty. It is a crime of comparatively modern development, and seems to have originated in the desire to obtain cer- tain small insects which tenant the flowers in question. It is also true that the sparrow occasionally expels martins from their nests. But it does not kill them, and, in effect, it only causes them to transfer their services from one district to another. (2.) The accusation of stealing peas and des- troying the plants may be met by a flat denial. Farmers and gardeners commonly attribute the chipped leaves of young bean and pea plants to the beak of the sparrow. In reality, however, the injury is due, not to the bird at all, but The House Sparrow. 73 to the small Sitones weevils, which are so terribly destructive to many leguminous plants. This may readily be proved by experiment. On a warm spring evening let the investigator ex- amine a few rows of young peas or beans by the aid of a bull'S-eye lantern. He will find the edges of the leaves thronged by these little beetles, all busily feeding upon them. Now let him remove the insects from a leaf or two, and he will see that the margins are chipped away even down to the mid-rib, in exactly the manner attributed to the beak of the sparrow. But it will be objected that sparrows visit pea and bean fields in multitudes. No doubt they do ; but they go there for the sake, not of the plants themselves, but of the weevils which are attacking and destroying them. So that their errand, in reality, far from being of a mischie- vous character, is a highly beneficial one. Some five years since I had a remarkable illustration of this fact. In my own garden, near Broadstairs, were several long rows of " telephone " peas. Of all the garden-owners of the neighbourhood, I alone took no pains to prevent the visits of sparrows, which were 74 Ornithology and Agriculture. allowed free and undisturbed access to every part of the garden, and took the fullest advan- tage of their opportunities. On visiting the rows, indeed, I frequently disturbed a flock of twenty or thirty sparrows from among them. Yet I lost neither a plant nor a pod, while none of my neighbours succeeded in growing a crop of even average yield. The fact was that the Sitones weevils were unusually abundant that season, and that the sparrows had removed them from my rows, while in those of my neigh- bours, from which the birds were excluded, the insects were able to carry on their mischievous operations unchecked. In order to put this matter quite beyond dis- pute, I killed half-a-dozen of the birds and opened them. In five out of the six the crop contained a number of dead weevils, while in the gizzard were vestiges of others. In none of these was there anything of a vegetable charac- ter. In the crop of the sixth, which had, appar- ently, but just arrived, was a single grain of corn, probably extracted — the month being May — from some horse-droppings in the neighbourhood. (3) Against the greatamount of mischief which The House Sparrow. 75 is undoubtedly committed by the sparrow must be set the very great services which it renders by the destruction of mischievous insects. This is notably the case during the breeding season, which extends over a period of some ten weeks. The young sparrows are quite unable to -digest a vegetable diet, and are fed entirely upon insects. Actual experiment has shown that these — consisting for the most part of highly injurious grubs — are brought to the nest at the rate of 40 per hour. Assuming that the sparrow works for only 1 2 hours in the day — an estimate far below the mark — we still have a total of 480 insects per day, 3,360 per week, and 33,600 in the course of the breeding season, destroyed by each pair of birds ! And this calculation does not take into account those which are devoured by the parent birds themselves. Of the value of the sparrow as a grub-destroyer I have again had practical experience. There is a large kitchen and fruit garden in North Kent, in which sparrows are not only tolerated, but en- couraged. The walls of the house and stabling are covered with ivy and creepers, in which they nest in hundreds. The garden, however, is 76 Ornithology and Agriculture. bordered upon two sides byan extensive orchard, devoted partly to apple-trees, and partly to goose- berries and currants, which are also grown largely in the kitchen garden. And throughout spring and summer that orchard is patrolled by gunners with instructions to shoot every sparrow they see Now, on the doctrine accepted among farmers, the orchard ought to bear plentifully, while the kitchen garden should be stripped of its produce. But, as a matter of fact, the exact opposite is regularly the case. The gooseberry and currant bushes are stripped of their foliage by saw-fly grubs and currant moth caterpillars, while the apple-trees are similarly damaged by the larvae of the lackey moth. And the fruit return is hardly ever sufficient to cover working expenses. But in the kitchen garden matters are very different. The gooseberry and currant bushes are literally laden with fruit. More than half-a- ton of jam is annually made from the produce of the latter alone, puddings, &c., for a school of thirty boys are manufactured three or four times a week, a large quantity of fruit is given away, and yet at the end of the season a considerable The House Sparrow. 77 amount invariably remains ungathered. So, too, with the gooseberries ; while the lackey cater- pillar is almost unknown upon the apples. Surely this may be regarded as a practical commentary upon the value of the sparrow as an insect destroyer. I may further refer to the fact that in Maine and Auxerre, some five-and-thirty years since, sparrows were exterminated, with the result that almost every green leaf, in the following season, was destroyed by caterpillars. Perhaps, too, I may be permitted to quote the following, which appeared two years since in the Kentish newspapers, and carries special weight, owing to the source from which the main statement emanates. I looked for some weeks for a contradiction, which, however, never ap- peared. " An almost unprecedented attack of maggot has taken place in the Kentish fruit plantations, and nut and apple crops have been in many instances grievously damaged, if not destroyed. Planters are making vigorous efforts to fight the pests, but the grubs are so numerous that hitherto they have defeated all attempts to get rid of 78 Ornithology and Agriculture them. The increase of insects is said by the farmers to be due to the scarcity of sparrows, owing to the wholesale slaughter of the birds which has been carried on n the district" The terrible havoc wrought by sparrows in Aus- traUa and North America, often brought forward as an argument for the extermination of the bird, has no bearing on the " sparrow question " in Great Britain. The bird in those countries has been introduced by man ; and change of climate implies a corresponding change in food. The sparrow, as a British bird, on every principle of justice, must be judged by its doings in Great Britain alone. And, weighing its services, as a whole, against its mischief, similarly considered, the unprejudiced observer can hardly deny that the former largely predominate. 79 CHAPTER VII. ARE SPARROWS SUFFICIENTLY DESTRUCTIVE TO AGRICUL- TURAL CROPS TO BE DE- STROYED ? BY J. H. GURNEY, Jun., F.L.S., F.Z.S. Seven hundred and fifty-five dissections have been made in the preparation of the following table, by various hands. Among those who have assisted, my thanks are especially due to my father, Mr. C. L. Buxton, Mr. B. B. Sapwell, Mr. T. E. Gunn, Mr. F. Norgate, and Mr. T. Southwell for dissections made in Norfolk. Mr. A. Willis and Mr. G. Roberts furnished me with i(X> from Yorkshire, and Mr. H. H. Slater with 48 from Northamptonshire. A few others have been obtdined from Lincolnshire (J. Cordeaux) 8o Ornithology and Agriculture. Durham (H. H. Slater), Oxfordshire (O. V. Aplin), and Surrey, together making the total given above. These dissections have been made at pretty regular intervals during every month of the year. It is therefore confidently believed that they give a correct and reliable idea of what the customary food of a sparrow is. A second column is given under the head of " occasional food." Too much importance, however, must not be attached to this, for the "occasional food" of many species of birds might be almost in- definitely extended, and particularly of such an omnivorous bird as the sparrow. FOOD OF ADULT SPARROWS. January. February March. April. HEIR CUSTOMARY FOOD. Corn from stacks and from poultry yards ; seeds of all kinds. Corn. Corn. Corn; vegetable matter in general quite indistin- guishable. THEIR OCCASIONAL FOOD. Reftise corn, such as is scat- tered in roads ; broken maize ; capsules of moss (H. H. Slater). Seeds ; buds of gooseberries (G. Roberts) ; broken maize. Freshly - sown barley and oats; young tops of peas, radishes, cabbages, and cauliflowers (Wilson); broken maize. Freshly - sown barley and oats ; seeds ; caterpillars ; broken maize. sparrows and Agricultural Crops. 8i FOOD OF ADULT S-pARROWS^coniinued. May. June. July- August. September October November December THEIR CUSTOMARY FOOD, Corn; vegetable matter, and seeds. Corn; vegetable matter; peas ; seeds of various sorts. Young wheat, bar- ley, and oats ; vegetable matter ; seeds of various weeds. Wheat, barley, oats. Corn ; wild seeds of many kinds, es- pecially the knot- grass and corn bindweed. Corn; seeds of many kinds, in- cluding knot- grass. Corn ; seeds. Grain, principally from stacks. THEIR OCCASIONAL FOOD. Young- pea-pods and leaves of peas ; gooseberry-blos- soms and young goose- berries ; small beetles ; caterpillars ; turnip - seed (A. Hepburn) ; sprouts of young barley ; pollen of the sycamore - tree and apple ; mangold - wurtzel leaves (B. B. Sapwell). Gooseberries and other fruit ; lettuces (A. Willis) ; small beetles ; mangold - wurtzel leaves (B. B. Sapwell); Peas ; small beetles ; beans (A. Willis) ; seeds of wild spinach (A. Willis). Seeds of corn, bindweed, knot-grass, &c. (F. A. Lees) ; aphides, small beetles, caterpillars. Caterpillars ; berries ; seeds of plantain, plantago major (T. Southwell). Newly-sown seeds of wheat ; small caterpillars. Seeds ; maize ; sprouting beans (H. H. Slater). Ornithology and Agriculture. FOOD OF YOUNG SPARROWS WHILE IN THEIR NESTS. May. June. July. August. THEIR CUSTOMARY FOOD. Corn ; small beetles, caterpillars. Caterpillars ; young wheat Caterpillars ; beet- les ; soft, milky grains of wheat and barley. Caterpillars, beet- les ; young corn. THEIR OCCASIONAL FOOD. Buds (F. Norgate), red spider, hair worms, small flies. Beetles, large brown cabbage moth (5raj«Va) (W.Johns), wireworm. Blue-bottle flies (J. Dufl"); last year's com. Small chrysalides ; last year s corn ; peas, crane-flies, aphides (G. Roberts). Dr, Schleh, whose observations in Germany have been referred to, finds that in that country a sparrow's food, two weeks after leaving the nest, consists of 43 per cent, of animal food. This is a more favourable estimate for the spar- row than I am able to give for England. Other information is given in Dr. Schleh's treatise, en- titled " Der Nutze und Schaden des Sperlings im Haushalte der Natur," which may be con- sulted with advantage by any one who is in- terested in the sparrow question. In England about 75 per cent, of an adult sparrow's food is corn, chiefly barley and wheat, with a fair sparrows and Agricultural Crops. 83 quantity of oats. The remaining 25 per cent, may be' roughly divided as follows : — Seeds of weeds, &c - 10 per cent Green peas Small beetles 4 .» 3 , Caterpillars Insects which fly Bread and other things 2 .. I 5 „ In young sparrows not more than 40 per cent, is corn, while about 40 per cent, consists of caterpillars, and 10 per cent, of beetles, generally small black ones, but sometimes larger ones broken up into fragments. This is up to the age of sixteen days. It is not improbable that dissections made in other parts of England and in other years might give a result more favourable to the sparrow, and I am led to suppose by the statements of several ornithologists that that is so. I will merely refer to the fact that ten witnesses gave evidence in favour of the sparrow before the House of Com- mons in 1873. The report of that Committee is too bulky to quote from here, but I specially allude to the evidence given in by the Rev. J. P. Bartlett, Mr. W. Johns, Dr. Beverley Morris, Mr. Henry Stevenson, and the Rev. J. G. Wood. G 2 84 Ornithology and Agriculture. , All that can be said is that the matter is not settled yet. That the sparrow does more harm than good under ordinary circumstances is proved ; but .it is not clear that in the case of the exceptional abundance of some noxious insect, or some noxious weed, it might not be of great service. Upset the balance of nature by exterminating sparrows, and you may pay an unknown penalty. With this in view, it may be wise indeed for the Norwich Chamber of Agri- culture to recommend their being kept within bounds, but never that they should be entirely exterminated. " In the vicinity of Baden," writes Mr. Harting, " a price was set on the head of the sparrow, and soon not a sparrow was to be found in the neighbourhood," but later on we are told " the very men who had offered a price for his destruction, offered a still higher price to in- troduce him again into the country." Such a thing as this has never occurred in England^ but if it has happened at Baden, it might happen with us also. 85 CHAPTER VIII. THE WOOD PIGEON. BY T. H. NELSON. [^Member of the British Ornithologists Union.') The Wood-pigeon {Columba palumbus), also known as the Ringdove, from the white feathers which almost encircle the neck, is plentifully dis- tributed in the British Isles, and is one of our commonest resident birds. In the counties bor- dering on Wales it is called the " Quist " or " QuIst "; in the Midlands the " Quest ; and in the north of England the " Cushat " ; while in Scotland it is often termed the " Cushie-doo." During the present century its numbers have multiplied to an enormous extent, the causes leading to this vast increase being: — (i.) the destruction of birds of the Falcon tribe, which are the natural enemies of the wood-pigeon ; 86 Ornithology and Agriculture. (2.) the great amount of land now planted with turnips and other green crops, serving to supply it with food in the winter months ; and (3.) the increase of fir plantations and coverts, which afford it protection both in the nesting season and at other times. Writing in the Zoologist for 1 844, the Rev. J. C. Atkinson says : — " These birds are greatly on the increase in various parts of the kingdom, owing principally, I think, to the large extent of recent fir plantations. In Norfolk (and here the plantations are chiefly of fir), I have seen them in flocks of many hun- dreds, where some years ago they were compara- tively rare." The veteran ornithologist, Mr. John Hancock,* of Newcastle-on-Tyne, in "The Birds of Northumberland and Durham," 1874, writes: — "This species has, in the last ten or twelve years, greatly increased in numbers." Mr. E. Cambridge Phillips, in "The Birds of Breconshire," 1882, observes : — " It is certainly on the increase here during the last few years, both as regards residents and visitors. Mr. O. V. Aplin, in "The Birds of Oxfordshire," * Since this was written we regret to announce the death of Mr. Hancock, at the age of eighty-two. The Wood Pigeon. 87 mentions the wood-pigeon as one of the birds which have been observed to be more plentiful of late years. The same is the case in Here- fordshire and neighbouring counties. In Scotland it was rare at the beginning of this century, but, as will be shown in this article, it is now deemed a nuisance in North Britain ; and it even penetrates as far as the Outer Hebrides, but, owing to the scarcity of woodland, it is, of course, not common in those islands. The consensus of opinion of the most eminent naturalists tends to prove that its numbers are steadily increasing. Even in the London parks it is now quite a common bird. In the Zoologist for 1 888, Mr. W. H. Tuck comments on its abundance in Hyde Park. He remembers the first pair coming in 1883. Recently he counted forty-seven, old and young, feeding on the lawn north of Rotten Row. In August, 1890, he writes : — " Their numbers have so increased that 1 have given up counting them." If such an essentially wild bird is multiplying in London, what must be the state of things in the provinces, where there are hundreds of acres of plantations for it to nest in ? 88 Ornithology and Agriculture. Nearly all our birds are migratory to some extent, and the Ringdove is no exception. There is annually a migratorial movement about October or November ; and, in some years, vast flocks of foreign birds come to our shores. It is probable that our home-bred birds move south- wards as winter approaches, and their places are occupied by the stranger arrivals, which can often be recognised by their cleaner and more brightly-coloured plumage. The writer was a witness of an unusually large migration of " foreigners " in the autumn of 1884, on the east coast of Yorkshire. During the latter part of October and the first week of November, for a period of several days, both ringdoves and stock- doves came from over the sea, in flocks varying from twenty to fifty or sixty in number. The first flights generally appeared about 8 a.m., and continued, at intervals of a few minutes, up to 3 p.m. A great many were shot by local gunners who were posted along the shore ; one sportsman had upwards of fifty in three days. According to the natural history papers, it appeared that this migration extended along the east coast from Berwick to Norfolk. These The Wood Pigeon. 89 migrants are generally considered as coming from " foreign ' parts ; and, doubtless, when severe and stormy weather prevails in North Europe, very large bodies do cross the North Sea in the latter part of autumn. But one of our best informed north-country ornithologists thinks that it is probable the migrations of our visitors are not so extensive as many people imagine ; and that they have only come from the Scotch High- lands, the Lothians, and other parts, moving about in search of food supplies. We would suggest, however, that there are generally two migrations in hard winters : one, in late autumn, from over the sea ; and, if the weather should prove unusually severe about December or January, another from Scotland southwards. But no fixed rule can be laid down as to the mi- grations of this bird. One may set up a theory based upon several years' observation, and next year it is utterly demolished. Then, when our visitors have arrived, their movements are rest- less and uncertain. They are generally most numerous in the North in severe weather ; the longer the storm is prolonged, the more numerous they become ; but every change affects them ; 90 Ornithology and AgricuHiire. for instance, though a severe frost and snow- storm may bring hundreds where few were seen previously, yet, if there should be none during the hard weather, they will appear in great quan- tities when a thaw comes. The food of the wood-pigeon consists chiefly of grain, peas, beans, beechmast, acorns, seedling potatoes, turnip-tops, bulbs, and seeds (the latter picked up from the freshly-sown drills), young clover, seeds of the wild mustard, charlock, dock, and ragweed, gooseberries, and various other berries, seeds, and plants. In the Field of the loth December, 1887, oak spangles are reported as having been found in the crop of a ring- dove shot in Wilts, and the editor remarks that this is, in his opinion, an unusual article of food for the bird in question. Numerous stories are told of the extraordinary capacity of its crop. The writer took a cupful of turnip-tops from one in December, 1884. Sixty-one acorns were found in one which is now in Leicester Museum. A correspondent of the Field discovered 76 acorns and a quantity of swede-tops in one in Shropshire on 18th December, 1883 ; another is mentioned (19th January, 1884) which con- The Wood Pigeon. 91 tained 73 hazel nuts ; and, on 8th October, 1887, an instance is recorded of one which contained 838 grains of corn, to which the editor remarks that the number of grains is not unprecedented. Mr. Abel Chapman mentions in " Bird-life on the Borders," that thirty-seven beans weighing nearly an ounce and a half, besides some grain, were found in the crop of a stock-dove.* It will be seen from the " bill of fare " given above that heavy toll is levied upon the agri- culturists. Some sentimental cabinet naturalists defend the cushat's grain-eating propensities on the score that it compensates for any damage done in this way by destroying the seeds of noxious weeds. This may be so to a certain extent ; and, possibly, if the balance of Nature was not interfered with by man's agency, the food of the pigeon would still mainly be con- fined to wild seeds and plants ; and, in districts where it is not particularly numerous it probably does not harm the farmer's crops, but even benefits them ; as, for instance, when unkindly * In December, 1889, I shot a ringdove, the crop of which burst when it fell to the ground. It contained 144 ripened haws.— Ed. 92 Ornithology and Agriculture. weather in spring has arrested the growth of some of the white corn crops, allowing the hardy wild mustard to overtop the tender blade, the pigeon destroys the weed by stripping it of every leaf, and often the lowly chickweed furnishes it with an abundant repast. But, like the rook and sparrow, and from the causes mentioned above, it has become vastly more abundant than Nature ever intended it to be, and therefore there is not sufficient wild food to support the hordes that assemble after the breeding season, and the agriculturist suffers to such an extent that its frightful ravages steel the mind to the destruction of this beautiful ornament of our woods. In the north-east of Yorkshire the farmers declare that it is most destructive in the cornfields, both at seed-time and harvest ; and they say that one bird will eat its own weight in grain in a day.* The Rev. J. C. Atkinson, in 1844, says: — "Where they are numerous they inflict considerable loss upon the farmer, visiting his peafields and seed tares with great assiduity ; and each bird will eat not less than two ounces of peas daily." Similar, * A ridiculous statement. — Ed. The Wood Pigeon. 93 opinions are expressed as to its destructive habits in Herefordshire, and the counties border- ing on Wales, as the writer is informed by a naturalist residing in that neighbourhood. Mr. J. Hancock, in the work before referred to, observes that the ringdove is much com- plained of in Northumberland ; he also quotes from a letter from Mr. J. C. Langlands, of Old Berwick, as follows : — " Another evil arising from the destruction of birds of prey, and especially of the magpies, is that in this country we are preyed upon by immense flocks of cushats." We understand that an association has been formed in Northumberland which offers rewards for the destruction of wood- pigeons, with a view to lessening their numbers and checking the injuries inflicted by these birds upon the agriculturist. In the Field {ox September 13th, 1890, Sir R. Payne Gallwey describes an ingeniously con- trived cage for taking wood-pigeons alive, by which as many as a thousand have been cap- tured in a season. He further says : — " These birds are increasing rapidly, and, what is more, do considerable damage ; they are becoming 94 Ornithology and Agriculture. pests in some parts, and boys have to be em- ployed to drive them from the newly sown fields and young crops." In Scotland, where it was extremely rare at the end of last century, it now swarms to an injurious extent, and its ravages amongst the crops are of a most serious nature. Con- gregating in countless flocks, they forage in the stubble until the grain is exhausted, then they attack the leaves of the young winter wheat, swedes, turnips, and red clover ; the latter, when not killed, often suffering most from the ravages inflicted upon it. A small party will occasionally visit the stack-yards for beans and peas, until late in spring. When the peas and tares appear above ground, they are attacked with fatal severity ; and as soon as the swede has put forth its second pair of leaves, and escaped the ravages of the turnip- flea beetle, it is stripped of everything but the bare stalk by this greedy bird. When the fields assume the golden tints of autumn, they once more assemble in vast flocks, and attack the crops of wheat, oats and barley, the two former being preferred to the latter. Before the crops The Wood Pigeon. 95 are reaped the birds seek out some portion which has been laid or bent, always, where practicable, keeping near a hedge, trees, or plantation. They will return day after day, even although continually driven off, when they become very shy and wary, rising from the corn on hearing the least noise, and alighting on the hedge, or a neighbouring tree, or flying off to some dis- tance. When the corn-stalks are not sufficiently bent to allow them ready access to the ear they light amongst them in a peculiar way, so as to obtain the end in view. They eat wheat which has been steeped in a strong solution of brine previously to sowing with much relish ; indeed, they give it the preference. The follow- ing notes by the late Thomas Edward, the Banff- shire naturalist, written in i860, are of consider- able interest : — " The cushie-doo bids fair to become one of the greatest pests the farmer will have to encounter with respect to his crops. These birds have increased amazingly within ■ the last few years, and the damage they do is incalculable. This increase is caused by the almost total destruction of the hawk tribe, which aided greatly to thin their numbers." In August 96 Ornithology and Agriculture. 1879, ^t the Central Banffshire Farmers' Club, Viscount Reidhaven, after mentioning that a suggestion had been made to form an associa- tion for the destruction of wood-pigeons, read some statistics showing what had been done on his father's estate from 1876 and 1879. In these four years 15,194 eggs, 1,603 young birds, and 3,733 old birds were destroyed, making a total of 20,529. The amount of money expended as head-tax was £117 13s. 3d. With reference to the South-east of Scotland, Mr. G. Pow, of Dunbar, writes : — " The United East Lothian Agricultural Society, in the course of about seven years, paid head-tax on wood- pigeons at the rate of a penny to twopence a head, and one penny for each pair of eggs ; in the time given 130,440 pigeons were paid for at these prices. That was twenty years ago, and that expenditure in no way diminished the numbers in this county (according to Gray, pp. 214,215). Since 1870, however, they have gradually decreased, although for the last years, if I mistake not, no price has been set upon their destruction. There is certainly no such price at present. As to the cause of their de- The fVood Pigeon. 97 crease . . . my opinion is, that it is due to sheer slaughter of the species by gamekeepers, farmers, fowlers, and — in the past — professional pigeon shooters, who were wont to reap a rich harvest by shooting them. At one place near the centre of the county they were caught wholesale by means of a large trap. They literally " find no rest for the soul of their feet " in these parts ; death awaits them on all sides : in the woods, at the hands of the gamekeepers ; in the fields, by farmers and persons employed by them ; and on the seashore by fowlers who, waiting for flight-time for wild duck, find it a profitable pastime to augment their bags with wood-pigeons. But although the cushat is such a destructive creature, it is a real sporting bird, and, in return for the toll levied upon the farmer, the latter may take his revenge upon its body, which is excellent eating. Wood-pigeons are not inclu- ded in the schedule of the " Wild Birds Preser- vation Act," and may be killed at any time of the year by owners or tenants of land, or persons authorised by them. As a rule, but few can be killed in the daytime when they are feeding in H 98 Ornithology and Agriculture. the fields j the best plan is to wait for them towards dusk when they go to roost in the plantations. There, during the last hours of daylight, is the time and place, in a favourable season, to kill them wholesale. But extreme caution must be observed, for the cushat is as wary as any wild-fowl, which it resembles in habits more than any other species of bird. The gun should be held vertically, in a position to fire, as the slightest movement is detected by the wary birds. The best time to shoot is just when they are lowering to alight ; or they may be allowed to settle on the branches, and often a favourable opportunity will arise for a family shot. The position to select for shooting them at flight-time is on the leeward side of a wood, about a gunshot from the outside, and, if pos- sible, opposite the highest trees which may happen to grow there, and towards which they are sure to direct their flight. They always fly head to wind, so the best sport is to be obtained in a strong breeze, as it deadens any sound which an incautious gunner may make, and the birds fly lower and are more unsuspicious than in a light wind. In suitable situations a conical The Wood Pigeon. 99 hut of branches may be built at the foot of a tree, and used as a shelter to shoot from. It should be allowed to remain for a few days before being occupied, so as to allow the birds to become familiarised with its presence. When winter's snowy mantle covers the earth, a good plan is to don a white nightgown, and tie a white handkerchief over the cap. This ruse often succeeds when all other devices for con- cealment would fail. A few decoys are very useful ; these may be either stuffed birds, or painted wooden imitations, and should be fixed on the branches of the trees frequented by the birds. Sometimes freshly-killed birds, supported by a forked stick under the neck, may be used if the shooter is waiting for the pigeons coming to feed on a stubble, turnip, or clover-field. The ringdove usually begins to nest in March or early in April ; a second brood is reared in June, and sometimes a third in autumn ; eggs, and young in the nest, have been found as late as October. The nest, which is flat, is loosely made of twigs, and built in trees of all sorts, but chiefly firs ; sometimes in bushes and hedges, and rarely, on old walls and cliffs. The H 2 lOO Ornithology and Agriculture. eggs are two in number, very exceptionally one or three,* pure white, smooth and glossy, elong- ated and oval in shape. Incubation lasts from sixteen to eighteen days. The young are blind and helpless until they are about nine days' old ; they remain in the nest until able to fly, and are fed with a curd-like substance emitted from the crops of the parents. A detailed description of the plumage of such a common bird is out of place here, but it may be mentioned that white and particoloured varieties are occasionally met with. Its length is 17 inches, wing 10 inches, average weight 1^26 ounces. The stock-dove {Columba cenas), a near relative of the ringdove, has latterly increased to such an extent that it, also, in some places is becoming a pest to the agriculturist, and may be bracketed together with its larger relative. Fifteen years ago it was considered a great rarity in the North of -England, but now it is quite numerous. It may be distinguished from the ringdove by the absence of the white feathers on the sides of the neck, and by its smaller size. Its length is 13-5 inches, wing 8'8 inches, weight 13 ounces. * Of hundreds of nests examined, I have never seen more than two eggs. — Editor. lOI CHAPTER IX. THE ROOK. BY O. V. APLIN, r.L.S. {Aulhor of the "Birds of Oxfordshire." Member of the British Ornithologist's Union.) " Forasmuch as innumerable number of rooks, crows, and choughs do daily breed and increase throughout this realm, which rooks, crows, and choughs do yearly devour and consume a won- derful and marvellous great quantity of corn and grain of all kinds, that is to wit, as well in the sowing of the said corn and grain, as also at the ripening and kernelling of the same ; and over that a marvellous destruction and decay of the covertures of thatched houses, barns, ricks, stacks, and such like ; (2) so that if the said crows, rooks, and choughs should be suffered to I02 Ornithology and Agriculture. breed and continue, as they have been in certain years past, they will undoubtedly be the cause of the great destruction and consumption of a great part of the corn and grain which hereafter shall be sown throughout this realm, to the great prejudice, damage, and undoing of the great number of all the tillers, husbands, and sowers of the earth within the same." So runs the preamble to an Act of Parliament passed in the 24th year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth (1532). And for remedy of this state of things it was enacted that every occupier of land, "as well spiritual as tem- poral," should do what he could to destroy those birds, upon pain of a " grievous amerciament." Also that every. parish should provide a net to take crows, rooks, and choughs, with all things requisite to the same, and maintain the same for the next ten years. The net was "with and after a shrap made with chaff and other things meet for the purpose," to be laid at such times of the year as were convenient for destruction of the birds, and in such places as should be thought expedient. Any man, with licence of the owner of the ground, might take crows and rooks, and The Rook. 103 was to be paid after the rate of two pence the dozen. The clause relating to the crow-net only was revived in the reign of Elizabeth, but it was not until the year 1856 that the Act, though long obsolete, was finally repealed. Yarrell says that in Scotland legal persecution began in 1424, and another Act in 1457 for- feited to the Crown all trees whereon rooks were suffered to build their nests, should the nests be allowed to remain until Beltane (May-day). The " crow-net " is figured by Willoughby in his " Ornithology," and Bishop Stanley tells us of an entry in the presentments concerning Alderley, in Cheshire, in 1598, "We find that there is no crow-nett in the parish." Shrap, or shrape, appears to have been a piece of ground scraped or swept — perhaps where the snow had been swept away in hard weather. We have shrapen in middle English for scrape, and in Webster's dictionary we find " shrap, shrape place baited with chaff to invite birds." Ever since those days wars of extermination have been periodically waged upon the rooks. And at times the destruction wrought, not only I04 Ornithology and Agriculture. among them but on many other birds, must have been enormous, until in 1863 an Act was most wisely passed imposing a penalty of £^10 upon any one laying out or sowing poisoned grain or seed. Since that time the rooks have had an easier time of it. One wonders how any of the race survived the days of their heaviest tribulation, when under the Tudors men were heavily amerced for letting them go unharmed on their lands. Perhaps they forsook for a time their traditional habits of building near the habi- tations of man, and retired into the wilder wooded parts of the country, when it could not be said that any man harboured them. But when once the arm of the law was relaxed, when men were again allowed to have rooks on their demesnes if they wished to, the rooks must have been a hard race to root out of the land. Secluded in the midst of deep woods, and sur- rounded by the great parks whose hundreds of acres of rich green sward they kept free from grub and worm, the rooks must have built for ages round our English mansions. And doubt- less they bred in peace when the happier days returned. For surely, even in those old unimagi- The Rook. 105 native days, the English ears of the old lords and squires must have been attuned to the caw- ing of the rooks as they swung in the tops of the tall elms on the wild March mornings ; and they cannot have been dead to the charm of those softer caws, so beautifully harmonising with the season, which they heard when their sable friends returned to visit their homes again in the sunny autumn afternoons. Here they must always have found protection, or at least tolera- tion, to some extent. But everywhere in the present century a kindlier feeling towards the rooks has gradually grown up. Here and there a man was found to allow that they did some good ; and at last one, perhaps more observant than his fellows, and of independent opinion, was found to declare that they did more good than harm ! He, poor fellow, must have had a bad time of it at first among his agricultural friends and neighbours. Now, it is pleasant to think this is the opinion of many, if not most, agriculturists, — most of them, that is to say, who do not happen to live in a district where the rook is exceptionally and perhaps unduly abundant, and where the io6 Ornithology and Agriculture. proportion of pasture land is small. I do not know whether it is that Scotland is remarkably prolific of rooks, or insuiificiently productive of the rooks' natural food, but certain it is that there the rook wars have broken out most fiercely and most frequently. At all events practical men will now, if not aver that the balance is in favour of the rook, at least allow that the balance is very nicely poised. Let us try and examine evidence, and see on which side it will go down. It will be best first to consider the mischief the rooks can do, and then the good. Rooks damage, or are alleged to damage, crops in the following ways: — They dig up and eat the corn as soon as it is planted, and until it is sprouted well above the ground. They eat and knock down the corn when it is nearly or quite ripe. And it is also said that in some places they damage it soon after it has come into ear. Crops of peas are also damaged by them.* * I believe jackdaws are more destructive to this crop than rooks, though the latter, of course, generally get the blame. — O. V. A. The Rook. 107 They dig up and eat potatoes, both the " settings " in spring, and the ripe tubers in autumn. They peck holes in turnips in winter. They pull the corn straws, with ears attached, out of the ricks in winter, and occasionally do some damage by destroying the thatch of ricks and letting in the weather. Besides this damage to crops rooks steal the eggs of partridges and other game birds. This is a serious indictment. There may also be some minor charges to be met, but the five enumerated first are,'and have for years been almost universally brought against the rooks, and they are mainly the cause of the inter- mittent war which has for many generations been waged against their race. It will be well, therefore, to consider these five charges in detail. To take the first. There is no doubt that newly drilled corn, until it has grown well above the surface of the ground, must be carefully watched, and the best means must be taken to frighten and drive away the rooks during the critical time. But that this corn is not the food io8 Ornithology and Agriculture. which the rook would choose to a large extent is easily shown. Almost any agriculturist will tell the inquirer that autumn-sown corn requires but little watching, and is very little troubled by the rooks. Why ? The reason is plain. In autumn other food is plentiful. Grubs, worms, and insects still abound, and are found near the surface of the ground, both in the stubbles as well as in the ploughings, and among the rich aftermath grass. It is the spring-sown corn which suffers. Early spring is always a trying time for birds. Most of the old food has been eaten up during the winter, the insects have not yet come forth, and no new food has been pro- duced. No wonder then that the temptation of a newly-drilled field is too much for the rooks. It is doubtful whether they can now do anything approaching the same amount of damage as they did in the pre-drilling days. Nowadays, although they can dig down to the corn, and the little cone-shaped holes made by the birds' beaks can everywhere be seen in a field harried by rooks, yet this digging must take time. In further proof of the fact that it is necessity in a great measure which drives rooks to the spring corn, it is The Rook. 109 most noteworthy to observe that it is only in very dry, bitterly cold spring weather that the rooks become unbearably troublesome in this respect. And it is rather unfortunate that this same severity of the season which makes the unbroken ground too hard for the rook's bill, and drives the worms far below the surface, has also the effect of drying and pulverising the soil on the newly-drilled lands, and of rendering the seed-corn peculiarly accessible to the rook's bill. It must, on the other hand, be remembered that in dry springs the seed-corn is more effectu- ally buried by the drill than when the ground is inclined to be wet, and that when the grains are well covered with earth, however eager the rooks are, the time and trouble they have to expend in digging up the corn necessarily limits the amount of damage which they are able to do. Let a change in the weather, accompanied by soft, warm, growing showers, ensue, and it will soon be seen that a large number of the birds which had persistently evaded the efforts of the crow-keeper, will neglect the grain for the worms and grubs teeming to the sur- face. no Ornithology and Agriculture. Newly-planted and sprouting beans are also liable to the attacks of the rooks. There is an old country saying, " Sow four beans as you make your row ; One to rot, and one to grow. One for the pigeon, and one for the crow.' But the damage done in this respect is pro- bably not very serious ; that is to say, it is probably very seldom that a crop of beans at harvest is much lighter than it would have been had the rooks let the field alone in seed- time. Now that parents are obliged to keep their boys at school until they are twelve years old, and store their heads at the expense of their bodies, instead of letting them earn the few shillings which would., bring in such a welcome addition to the weekly food supply in many large families, it is very difficult to get a boy for crow-keeping. Yet " crow-keepers,'' with their horns and "clappers," are perhaps the best means of protecting the newly-sown fields. Rooks soon get accustomed to the mechanical wind-turned clappers. If the crow-keeper is armed with pistol and powder, some one should The Rook. Ill go up once a day and send a charge of shot at the birds, for they soon seem to know when blank cartridge only is used. One or two of their number shot and gibbeted is generally a good scarecrow, and has been known to deter them from revisiting a field of ripe corn they had attacked, A clockwork crow-keeper has been invented. A figure of a man in thin wood carries a gun, which, at regular intervals, is raised to the shoulder and fired. The intervals are regulated by setting a dial. In North Norfolk the writer was informed that seed-corn was dressed with a mixture of tar and lime, which effectively protected it from the rooks, a custom which, it is said, had been prac- tised for many years. By an Act of Parliament passed in the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh years of her present Majesty (chapter 113) it was made illegal to sow or lay out any poisoned grain or seed ; but it was expressly stated that nothing in the Act prohibited the use of any solution or ingredient for dressing, protecting, or preparing any grain for bond fide use in agriculture. Fields of ripe and ripening corn, chiefly wheat I 1 2 Ornithology and Agriculture. and barley, are often terribly punished by the rooks. This takes place most frequently, and the crop suffers most, when the corn has been laid by heavy rain or high winds. The sides and corners of the fields are almost always pre- ferred by the birds, and some fields, from their position and surroundings are more visited than others. A corn-field adjoining the pastures and meadows which the rooks frequent is always more liable to their attacks than one lying in the midst of an open, treeless, arable country. When the flock is busy worming on the grass, it is easy for a few birds nearest the hedge to flap over into the corn almost without being noticed. Large trees, to which the rooks habitually resort in summer, are also a source of danger to a corn- field near them. Hidden in the thick foliage, the rooks wait, silent and unnoticed, for a good chance of swooping down upon the field unob- served. It is not only the corn they eat on these occasions, but what they spoil. Even when the corn is upright they will sometimes knock it down for themselves. This happens more frequently with a thin crop and short straw. Raising themselves to their utmost The Rook. 1 1 3 stretch, or rising a little way, they beat the corn down with flapping wings. We may well doubt, however, whether the rooks do as much damage in this manner as is often supposed. The wood- pigeon and the sparrow are very destructive among ripe corn, especially the latter, and it is highly probable that they do a good deal of the damage with which the rook is credited. Rooks also visit pea-fields when the peas are nearly ready to cut. But peas are always a foul crop, and much infected with insects, which are perhaps partly the object in view. It is cer- tain that jackdaws must have their share of blame, and some of the great damage done by the wary wood-pigeons (by far the worst enemies of peas) is most likely often laid to the charge of the more conspicuous rooks. The bean crop in harvest does not appear to suffer much. It is a curious fact, that just after the harvest is off the ground, the rooks very seldom, if ever, pay any attention to the large amount of scat- tered grain left on the stubbles, but rather prefer, at that season, to haunt the grass lands for the grubs and worms they find there. This seems to indicate that the rook's fondness I 1 1 4 Ornithology and Agriculture. for a farinaceous diet is after all not very great* As with the spring-sown corn, watching the crop is the only way of mitigating the damage. As the attacks are often limited to a small space, this is more easily carried out than in seed-time ; and the hedges being in full leaf, it is often not difficult to creep up to the birds in the corn, when a couple of shots into them as they rise will give them a considerable scare, and the bodies of two or three of their number hung up will often deter them from returning. In the potato field rooks occasionally do some damage by digging up and carrying off the newly-planted " settings " in spring, and also the ripe tubers in autumn ; but in mitigation of this offence, it can be said that the amount of labour which the rooks would have to expend before reaching their spoil prevents them from doing a great deal of injury. The mischief at either season is not of very common occurrence, while the visits paid by rooks to the potato fields * In Norfolk I was told that they attack the wheat when it was " blowing " ; but if they do damage the green corn it is probably later in the season than this, as there is very little substance in the ears when the bloom is just on them — O.V.A. The Rook. 115 in autumn are, often at all evehts, made for the purpose of searching out the grubs which are concealed there ; and the writer can say that he has never heard of rooks doing any appreciable damage among ripe potatoes in the district with which he is best acquainted. The latter part of this charge is indeed seldom or never brought against the rooks. Rooks will in severe seasons peck holes in the swede turnips which are still in the fields and not covered up in any way. Besides eating a larger or smaller portion of the pulp, they let the water into the bulb at the hole made by their beaks, and thus accelerate its rotting. It has been suggested that the rooks are in search of a grub or maggot in the turnip, but inquiry has failed to substantiate this theory, which may, however, have some truth in it. But roots, if they are intended to keep in good condition, should be taken up and " pitted " before the hard weather comes ; they are then safe from frost and rooks alike, though the latter will settle on the top of the pits and peck the roots if they are not properly covered up. Root crops left out in the open all winter, and neither pitted nor covered I 2 ii6 Ornithology and Agriculture. over by the ridging plough, as is the practice in some districts, will probably not be worth much after a spell of weather severe enough to induce the rooks to feed on them. Unless speedily eaten up by sheep and cattle, they are apt to go bad very soon, and therefore the rooks' alleged depre- dations are practically of very little account. Unroofing ricks and pulling them to pieces in severe weather, when the snow is on the ground, is another charge brought against the rook. Un- roofing of ricks is a rare, though not unknown, offence in those districts where thatching is well done, while it would puzzle any bird to pull the corn straws, with ears attached, out of a well- built stack. But when a rick which has been badly thatched is found out and attacked in snowy weather, the process of unroofing proceeds rapidly, and if the rick is not constantly watched it must be brought home at once, for at this time hunger renders the rooks more bold than usual, and their forces are concentrated in one spot. In the same way a slovenly-built rick may suffer, as the rooks may be able to pull out the straws from these, though not from others which have been properly built. The writer heard great The Rook. 1 1 7 complaints of this kind of damage in north Norfolk. But that must be an inhospitable country for rooks in winter, from the scarcity of rich grass lands ; and from the vast flocks he has seen there in late autumn it is evident that the numbers of the native birds are largely aug- mented at that season by immigrants from northern continental Europe.* At the present time of agricultural depression everything that the land will produce, or support, must be carefully looked after. The game which land will support should be looked upon as a product of the soil, and game preserving as a department of agriculture. Shooting rents may become an important item in the balance- ' sheet, whether the right is in the hands of the farming tenant, or reserved by the landlord. This is especially the case with poor land, and * During the severe frost in December, 1890, I heard rooks doing damage to a wheat rick. On visiting the place I found a large quantity of blade pulled out (this might have been done partly by small birds in search of any insects adhering to the blade), but very few straws, comparatively speaking, and those only from the top of the rick where the pressure was least. I tried my best to pull out some straws, as high up in the side of the rick as I could reach, but only two in twenty or thirty tries came out with the ear on ; the others broke off. This was, of course, a well-built rick. 1 1 8 Ornithology and Agriculture. it is unnecessary to allude to the enormous value of shootings in Scotland. All the members of the crow family are egg- stealers, and it would be odd if the rooks were exceptions to the rule. It is only in dry springs, however, that they prove very destructive, and are to be seen quartering the fields and flying along the hedge-banks, evidently in search of nests. As has been truly remarked, in dry seasons the scanty herbage makes the nests more exposed, and more easily discovered, but it is probable that the difficulty of procuring soft insect food may have something to do with the rooks' increased egg-stealing proclivities. It may be that during those hours of forced inactivity, before alluded to, which occur where the young are in the nest in bitterly cold springs, this form of mischief may be suggested for their idle beaks to do. But the majority of the partridges' eggs would not be laid at that time, and, as is well observed in the last edition of " Yarrell," " it is certain that if rooks were half so destructive to game as many people think, hardly a covey of partridges would be hatched." Yet their egg-stealing is well established, and The Rook. \ 19 when a rookery has been situated near a piece of ornamental water they have been known to rob the nests of the moorhen and wild duck. When poultry " lay away " from home, on the hedge-banks, or at the edges of fields, the eggs are liable to be taken by the rooks. But hens which have acquired this bad habit lead, at best, a precarious existence, their eggs and the birds themselves being at the mercy of all kinds of veirmin. Rooks are very fond of walnuts, and the nut- shells, split open but not broken, may often be seen in the fields far from any trees. The rooks settle in the trees, hop out into the small branches, when their flapping wings show that they have no good foothold, and pull the nuts off. They knock off far more than they take away, and seem to have a difficulty in getting hold of the husk. It is probable that they open their beaks and stick the points of the two mandibles into the husk a little way apart but as the rook flies out of the tree the big nut in its husk looks as if it was fixed on the end of the bird's beak. As the rooks do not attack the trees until the fruit is ripe, the nuts they knock I20 Ornithology and Agriculture. off are picked up in the ordinary course, and the quantity actually carried off is probably small. * Putting on one side those times when it is either harrying the newly-drilled fields, pillag- ing the ripening corn, or forced by the season to seek relief at the stack (a rare occurrence as has been shown), the rook may be said to live a life of the greatest utility. Day after day the flocks may be seen, alike in spring and autumn, summer and winter, scattered over the grass fields and meadows, pursuing their useful avocation of ridding the pastures of worms and noxious grubs. The larvae of the cockchafer {Melolantkd) and of the crane-flies, or daddy-longlegs {Tipuld), as well as wire-worms often abound in old turf as well as in " clover-leas," and do great damage by eating the roots of the grasses. These grubs are the favourite food of rooks, and many in- stances are on record of the birds' good offices in destroying and keeping them in check. Daniel, the author of " Rural Sports," says that * About the end of October, 1890, I often watched the rooks trying to rob the large trees at the back of the house, and am convinced that the number of nuts they carried oflf was far less than a casual observer would have imagined.-^ O.V.A. The Rook. 1 2 £ in 1747 whole meadows and corn-fields in Suffolk were destroyed by the larvae of the chafer beetle. The decrease in rookeries in that county was thought to be the occasion of it, and the farmers, both in Suffolk and Norfolk, found it in their interest to encourage colonies of rooks, which extirpated the beetle. Jesse also tells us that he once knew a rookery destroyed in deference to the request of many farmers, who, two years afterwards, were desirous that it should be restored, the wireworms, cockchafer grubs, and other destructive insects having greatly increased during that period. The same author, when speaking of the large, fat grub of the cockchafer as a favourite food of rooks, says that their search for them in old, mossy grass-fields, may be detected by the little tufts of moss which are pulled up by them, and scattered about. He was once shown a field which had all the appearance of being scorched, as if by a burning sun in dry weather. The turf peeled from the ground as if it had been cut with a turfing spade, and it was discovered that the roots of the grass had been eaten away by the larvae of the chafer, which were found in 1 2 2 Ornithology arid Agriculture. countless numbers at various depths in the soil. This field was visited by a great quantity of rooks, though there was no rookery within many miles of the neighbourhood, which turned up and devoured the grub. The passage here italicised explains how the grubs were enabled to increase so enormously and do so much damage. Where rooks are plentiful such a state of things is most unlikely to exist. It is recorded that years ago a flight of locusts visited Craven, to the great alarm of the agriculturists of that district. But the rooks flocked in from all parts, and speedily destroyed the whole of the insects. In the same publication it is stated that about the year 1830, there was such an enormous quantity of cater- pillars upon Skiddaw, that they devoured all the vegetation on the mountain, and it was feared that they would attack the crops in the enclo- sures ; the rooks, however, discovered and soon consumed them. Watch the rookery in spring, when the rooks are feeding their young. See where they go to find the food they are carrying to the nests. They go to the rich pastures, to the damp meadows, to the fallows, and to the allotment The Rook. 123 plots now newly-turned up by the spade. Here you may see them pulling the worms out of the ground. All daylong they go backwards and forwards between the nest-trees and the fields, bearing each time a little load of worms and grubs. Each time they bring back quite a number, and the mass collected in the basal part of the mandible (under the tongue) can be clearly seen as the rock flies past the observer on its homeward journey, the loose skin being dis- tended and appearing like a lump at the base of the beak. This gave rise to the notion, for- merly entertained, that the rook had a pouch at the root of the tongue. Worms and grubs they must have for their young. Corn is no good to them then. In dry, cold springs, when frosts and bitter east winds have made the turf as hard as iron, and dried up the newly-turned soil until it is dusty and powdery, so that the worms have retreated far below the surface, the young rooks are some- times half-starved. Faint, thin, hungry caws come from the nests, and the old birds sit about, or fly to their feeding-grounds in a half-hearted way, for they know how useless it is to search 124 Ornithology and Agriculture. for worms in the dry, powdery soil of the fallows and their beaks cannot break the hard surface of the grass lands. Dry, bitterly cold springs always make the young rooks late, though the weather is suitable for drilling corn. And what a chorus of glad caws arise when the wind shifts into the south-west, and the gentle, softening showers fall ! We cannot want better proof than this that all that time the rooks are doing unbounded good. And here we may well devote a short space to the consideration of the earthworm. When a bird has been paid to do good by eating worms, the reply has been made, — " That is not doing good ; we could not do without worms, they are very beneficial." True enough. It is well known that the earthworm forms our surface soil, and assimilates and mixes with it the decaying vegetable matter, leaves, &c., which fall on it every year. They also keep it fresh and sweet by boring through it, and turning it up in all directions. But the earthworm might easily become too numerous, and would then be a curse and not a blessing. Those who live in the country, where there are generally plenty of The Rook. 125 birds, together with some moles and shrews, can hardly realise what it is to be overstocked with worms. But dwellers in towns, where the mole and shrew are not, and where birds seldom come, know what it is. A smooth neatly-kept lawn can become an unsightly, loathsome object from the ground being full of earthworms. Instead of green it can become nearly all brown, the grass being covered up with worm-castings. In the kitchen gardens it is almost impossible to sow seeds in the beds, they are so constantly disturbed by the workings of the worms, and the growth of the roots of every plant is interfered with by them. It is as well to remember that the whole country might become like this if the earthworm's natural enemies were all destroyed, or so thinned that they could not keep the worms in check. And if once the earthworms did in- crease to this extent, it is diiificult to say what remedy could be found. The crane-fly or daddy-longlegs {Tipuld) may often be found swarming in pastures and meadows towards the end of summer and in early autumn. They are there for the purpose of depositing their eggs, from which swarms of 126 Ornithology and Agriculture. larvae would be hatched out, partly in the same autumn, but chiefly early in the following spring. The multitude of grubs thus brought into exist- ence would do incalculable harm by gnawing the roots of the grasses and other plants. The rooks, however, abate the mischief at its very inception, by eating enormous numbers of the flies themselves. They also dig up and eat the grubs at other seasons, both in pasture fields and on the arable land. Enough has been said, however, to show that the presence of rooks on the grass lands is eminently beneficial, and it is only necessary to remind farmers that when they see tufts of grass or clover planted in their fields evidently pulled up by the rooks, they must not consider that this is a mischievous action, but remember that the worm was already gnawing at the root of the plants, which would, in any case, have died, when the rook plucked it to destroy the real author of the mischief ; and, in destroying the grub, saved many plants not only from it individually, but from the ravages of the numbers it would have propagated. To appreciate fully the benefits rooks confer upon us in this respect, we must The Rook. 127 observe how many days in the year are spent by the sable hosts in the pastures and meadows how they resort day after day to one particular field which seems more particluarly to need their presence, deserting it for another only when their work is done ; and in the hard times of winter, should a mild spell occur, how they will crowd down into the partly-flooded meadows, where, at the edge of the shallow water, they know that in the softened ground they will again find in abundance their favourite prey, from which the rigours of winter and frost-bound ground had lately debarred them. To arable land the rook is not less atten- tive, although the period during which its useful visits can be paid is necessarily somewhat cur- tailed. A newly-ploughed field is a happy hunting-ground for the birds, and the picture of the rooks following the plough in order to seize the grubs and worms turned up before they have time to bury themselves once more, is a familiar country sight often depicted both by pen and pencil. The stubble fields are also visited in late autumn and winter, and in spring the fields of young autumn-sown wheat are visited by the 128 Ornithology and Agriculture. rooks in search of wireworms, which so often in- fest them. It needs only for the inquirer to witness once the utter destruction among corn crops which can be caused by these pests (the unchecked ravages of which would result in the entire failure of the crop), and he will ever after- wards view with complacency the rooks swagger- ing along the drills of his thickening wheat ; and if he finds here and there a few plants plucked up, let him rest satisfied that at their roots the wireworm was entrenched, and that the rook in rooting up the plant stopped further mischief To the turnip and swede fields, especially in hot weather, in summer and in the early days of autumn, the visits of the rooks are most bene- ficial. Root crops at those seasons often suffer greatly from wireworms, and still more from the ravages of a fat greygrub, the larva of one of the dart-moths, the Turnip-moth {Agrotis segetum). The latter is one of the most destructive of farm insects. The larva feeds on the cabbage, onion, lettuce, carrot, turnip, mangold, beet, &c., eating off the young plants, as well as boring into the bulbs. The rooks are very fond of these grubs, as well as of wireworms, and by digging round The Rook. 129 the roots soon reduce their numbers. The chief damage done by the grub in the turnip fields is just after the young plants are " set out." When a crop in this stage is badly attacked, the grubs will take nearly every plant if they are not checked.* But it is only in dry weather that the grubs are so extremely destructive ; in wet weather the plants can grow away from them to a considerable extentf The writer on examining a root crop attacked by the grub in hot weather in early autumn, but * An artificial check would be difficult to apply. So destruc- tive are the grubs that I have heard of a farmer in my own neigh- bourhood who used to em.ploy women to dig up the grubs, which were carried away and burned. An old labourer, employed all his days at turnip hoeing, often speaks of the good which rooks do in digging out and devouring the grubs. — O. V. A. t In a hilly field of twelve or fourteen acres, in the next parish, where swede turnips were being set out just after hay- time (in 1885, I think) the grubs took the plants so fast that the farmer stopped the work and left the plants thick in the drills. Still the grubs took them, and the roots which came to maturity might have been grown on about an acre of land. On this occa- sion the parish flock of rooks was doubtless engaged elsewhere. An agricultural friend here (North Oxfordshire) tells me that a few years ago he had a crop of swedes, newly set out, attacked very badly by the grub. The rooks came in numbers to the field, and after their visits the plants seemed to do well again. Rooks will, of course, pull up a few plants when digging the grubs. — O. V. A. K 130 Ornithology and Agriculture. afterwards visited by the rooks, had the pleasure of hearing the owner say that he did not believe he should have had any roots at all if it had not been for the "crows" — and this testimonial came from one who was in no way predisposed in favour of the rook, but who was more alive to the mischief they do at times, than to the more habitual, but less ostentatious, benefits that they confer upon agriculturists. The destruction of vast quantities of the destructive chovy {Pkyllopertka fwrticold) has also been attributed to the rook. And they are said also to eat the caterpillars which sometimes infest the foliage of oaks.* To sum up the whole matter. It has been found, without doubt, that rooks do a certain amount of damage both in seed-time and har- * A Warwickshire friend (incumbent of a vicarage in the Forest of Arden) writes to me of that district : -"Oak-woods and hedgerow-oaks abound everywhere, and have been much infested by these caterpillars, and I have seen the infested trees crowded with rooks, and evidently rendering very great service. The damage inflicted by the caterpillars in many woods has been great ; trees being almost stripped of foliage, and after a while producing late midsummer shoots whose tender golden leaves gave them a singular beauty, but were almost too tender to come to maturity." The Rook. 131 vest, but it must also be conceded that the periods during which they can injure the agri- culturist are of short duration. On the other hand, the benefits they confer are equally well proved, are carried on on a much larger scale, and are continued during the whole of the year, save at those exceptional times when the earth is frost-bound or deeply covered with snow. It has been shown that the natural and usual food of the rook consists of worms, grubs, and insects, and that a vegetable or farinaceous diet is only occasionally resorted to. In the face of these facts it is impossible to come to any other conclusion than that while the rook is, undoubtedly, occasionally injurious in certain places and for certain short periods, yet its occasional depredations are largely outweighed by the good which it is continually doing, and that on the whole, in its relation to agriculture, it is a highly beneficial agent. Our crops and newly-sown fields, during those short periods when they are liable to suffer from the visits of the rooks, can be protected from the birds to a large extent ; but no human nieans or device would in any degree suffice to check the enor- K 2 132 Ornithology and Agriculture. nnous increase of those many noxious insects (and the consequent extensive ravages upon our crops) which would certainly ensue were we to be deprived of the services of our feathered defenders. We ought not, then, in times of insect scarcity, to grudge them a fraction of these crops which they have preserved for our use from their insect foes " But know They are the winged wardens ofyour farms, Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe, And from your harvests keep a hundred harms, Even the blackest of them all, the crow." In those districts containing rookeries where water meadows exist, and in the uplands^ old turf land is equal to or in excess of the acreage of arable land, one may safely say that the rooks, having a sufficiency of ground over which they can range for food harmlessly and use- fully, will never be voted a nuisance. On the other hand, when a country-side is almost entirely under the plough, and large rookeries exist there, the constant presence of the birds upon the arable land is likely to be looked upon with considerable disfavour by agriculturists. The Rook. 133 And not altogether wrongly. For the scarcity or absence in such a locality of the most suit- able kind of ground for furnishing the rooks' natural food will naturally make the temptation to fall back upon the farmers' crops for sus- tenance very much greater than it would be under ordinary circumstances. Indeed^ in a purely arable district at that season of the year when the ground is covered with ripening crops, the summer fallows (almost unknown with high- farming), the seed grasses which are fed off, and the root-crop fields afford the only legitimate scope for the rooks delving bill. With the diminished area of feeding-grounds, then, it is hardly to be wondered at if he seeks to make up the deficiency in his supplies by helping himself to the farmers' crops. When grass- land is absent, therefore, if the land is to be kept free from grubs, agriculturists must be content, during the short season in which the surface of the ground is covered by maturing crops, to allow a little more pilfering on the part of the rook than would perhaps be permitted by those whose lot is cast among pasture and meadow. 134 CHAPTER X. THE STARLING. BY RILEY FORTUNE, FZ.S. Who is there among the dwellers in town or country who is not acquainted with the starling ; that garrulous bird which haunts our houses in the spring, pouring out his cheerful song, perched on the chimney-pot or some coign of vantage, putting his whole soul into the business, screaming and flapping his wings as if his very life depended upon making as much noise as possible? To all appearance he is as black as the soot in the chimneys, but examine him closely and you will find his plumage a rich velvety black, beautifully shot with purple and the green metallic lustre, which is flashing and ever changing in the sunshine. Every feather is The Starling. 135 tipped with a small triangular buff or cream- coloured spot ; in fact, when closely examined, we find him a very handsome fellow indeed. The starling is essentially a citizen of the world, and is everywhere at home — wherever man has his abode, there, in company with the audacious sparrow, we may be sure of finding him. He is found in all parts of the British Isles, and in all parts of Europe and the countries eastwards as far as Northern India. The last twenty years has seen an enormous increase in the number of these birds, especially in the North. In Northumberland, for instance, the bird was entirely unknown not many years ago. People used to come considerable dis- tances to see the strange black birds, which had taken up their abode in some cliffs near Sunder- land, but now they are common in both places. Considering the starling from an agricultural point of view, I say without the slightest hesita- tion that, as a friend of the farmer and gardener, it has no equal. Its food consists of worms, grubs, slugs, small molluscs, flies, beetles, ticks, and other insects, berries, and now and then a little fruit. I 36 Ornithology and Agriculture. The destructive tipula grubs, of which the starlings destroy millions every year, have been proved by Miss Ormerod to be almost inde- structible by ordinary means. In the Zoologist of 1863, an interesting table is published, which was compiled by M. Prevost. It is a sort of catalogue of the food consumed by the starling every month. January . ... Worms, grubs of cockchafer, and grubs m dung. February . . . Grubs, snails, and slugs. March . . . . Grubs of cockchafer, and snails. April . ... Ditto. May . ... Grubs of cockchafer, snails, and grasshoppers. June . ... Flies, and grubs of various flies. July . ... Grubs and fresh-water shell-fish. August . ... Fhes, glow-worms, and beetles. September . ... Green locusts, grubs of carrion beetles, and worms. October . . . . Worms and beetles. November . ... Snails, slugs, and grubs. December . ... Ditto. The starling is extremely fond of " ticks," and most dwellers in the country must have seen the birds perched on the backs of sheep, busy searching for these insects. During the nesting season, the number of grubs and insects of The Starling. 137 various kinds destroyed by them to feed their hungry brood is almost incredible, and were I to give the estimated numbers, I am afraid they would be received with unbelief. The amount of good work done by the starling is simply incalculable, while the harm they do is practically nil. True, they will sometimes take a little fruit, but it is only very occasionally, and then in such small quantities as hardly to be noticed. Grain they will hardly touch. Not many weeks ago I observed a mixed flock of starlings and sparrows frequenting a stubble field to feed. Their actions seemed very sus- picious, and I was very much afraid they were all making a meal off the fallen grain. To satisfy myself I shot one or two, but not a trace of grain could I find in of their crops, but the sparrows' crops were full of it. A very stupid charge has been brought against the starling by stupid people, who state ~ that he is in the habit of sucking the eggs of other birds and disturbing the eggs of the pigeons in the dove-cote. It does not re- quire any extraordinary powers of observation to prove that this charge is entirely devoid of 138 Ornithology and Agriculture. truth. I cannot do better than quote the words of that celebrated Yorkshire naturaHst, Charles Waterton, who in his very interesting book says : — " So certain am I that the starling never sucks the eggs of other birds that, when I see him approach the dove-cote, I often say to him, ' Go in, poor bird, and take thy rest in peace. Not a servant of mine shall surprise thee, or hurt a feather of thy head. Thou dost not come for eggs, but for protection ; and this most freely will I give thee. I will be thy friend in spite of all the world has said against thee ; and here at least thou shalt find a place of safety for thyself and little ones. Thy in- nocence and usefulness demands this at my hands. " Waterton proved his friendship and confi- dence by making suitable nesting-sites for these birds, and in a small ruin he established no less than twenty-four families. That his kindness would be fully repaid by the birds there cannot be the slightest doubt. Grubs, worms, larvae, beetles, flies, and hosts of other insects, they feed upon as stated, and are also extremely useful as scavengers ; The Starling. 139 and should any dead body or decaying animal matter be thrown into the fields, the starlings soon clear it away and prevent it tainting the atmosphere^ It is amusing to see them hawking for flies. I have often seen them chasing butterflies ; no doubt a very dainty morsel for them. The writer in the Zoologist for 1888 mentions a case where he had seen starlings busy taking pieces of bread and other food from the surface of a river as they were floating down. The whole life of the starling is passed in good work, and as a friend of the farmer he cannot be surpassed. He is worthy of every one's protection, and I sincerely hope that all farmers and gardeners will be able to say with that fine naturalist, Charles Waterton, " The starling shall always have a friend in me. I admire it for its fine shape and lovely plumage ; I protect it for its wild and varied song ; and I defend it for its innocence." In their nesting habits they show how cos- mopolitan they are. They usually commence building in April, when almost any place is chosen for the site of the nest — under eaves, in 140 Ornithology and Agriculture. dove-cotes, fissures in rocks, in spouts, holes in trees or banks, in fact, anywhere. The writer found a nest built behind a slate which had been reared against the door of a hay chamber in a farmyard. A well-known Yorkshire orni- thologist- told me an interesting incident relat- ing to these birds, showing how well they can adapt themselves to circumstances. The natural- ist referred to, during a visit to the Orkney and Shetland Isles in June, 1890, found a large number of starlings nesting on an island in the middle of a loch, in close proximity to a large colony of great black-backed gulls, as there were no cliffs or buildings of any kind near. The birds had built their nests in the ruins of some old walls, among heaps of stones, and in holes on the ground. The nest is usually built of straw with a few feathers intermixed, and from four to six eggs are deposited ; sometimes, how- ever, this number is exceeded, and it is no un- common event to find a nest containing seven eggs, whilst I have found as many as nine ; on one occasion fifteen. The latter nest was built in the corner of an out-house, and as nesting- sites were scarce in the neighbourhood, I think The Starling. 141 there can be no doubt that two birds had been driven on that account to use the same hole and nest. Starlings are not as a rule double brooded, but cases may be noticed every season of two broods being reared by one pair of birds. I have often noticed on the approach of spring fierce combats between the parent birds and the young ones of the previous season for the possession of the nesting hole. The old birds naturally want the old place, and the young ones evidently think they have a right to it also ; the battle generally results in a victory for the older inhabitants. Sparrows also often try to obtain possession, but they are very soon evicted, being generally hauled out by the tail, very often the tail feathers and Mr. Sparrow parting company during the struggle ; the quantity of tailless sparrows to be seen about during the spring may, to a great extent, be put down to this cause. The fact of the old birds visiting the nest- ing place regularly during the winter naturally leads one to, infer that these birds pair for life, and for my own part I am confident that 142 Ornithology and Agriculture. in the majority of cases they do. They are greatly attached to their nesting-holes, and if by any chance they should be blocked up or done away with, the birds show their distress in a very marked manner. They are excellent mimics, and it is very interesting to note the various calls they may be heard to imitate. I have known them give perfect imitations of the cries of the following birds : — Sparrow, lapwing, golden plover, chaffinch, blackbird, yellowhammer, thrush, jackdaw, swallow, and very many others. A year or two ago a shepherd told me that starlings were a regular nuisance to him ; they imitated his whistle so closely that even the dogs were deceived. While he was relating this we heard them at work, and the repre- sentation of the human whistle as given by them was perfect. They may be taught, when kept in captivity, to say many words and sentences. Who is there who has not heard of Sterne's famous starling with his plaintive cry of " I can't get out ! I can't get out ! " ? Poor creatures, it seems a pity to cage them, for they are easily domesticated, and may be The Starling. 143 allowed full liberty to roam about the premises without ever evincing a desire to fly away ; at least, the ones I have had never did. If, however, any one wishes to teach them to talk, I trust they will not commit the barbarous act of cutting their tongues. It is of no use whatever to perform such a cruel act ; the bird will talk without it if one has patience to teach it. Though gregarious in their habits they are rather quarrelsome birds, as may easily be noticed by any one who will take the trouble to watch a company of them when feeding. They will be amused to notice how the latest arrival, who comes in with a rush and drops down among those assembled with a curious, abrupt, topsy-turvey motion, first of all makes a rush at the nearest bird and gives it a dig with its long beak, and nearly all the time they are squeaking and quarrelling one with another in a very unfriendly fashion. This, however, seems chiefly when on the ground, as it can- not be noticed to the same extent when perched in the trees or on the house-tops. It is a beautiful and interesting sight to 144 Ornithology and Agriculture. watch a flock of starlings feeding, to note how well they search almost every inch of the field. As a rule they work in a straight line, and when the ground has been sufficiently looked over the rear ranks take a short flight just beyond the front ranks, and then alight and commence work again, the front rank of course, being left in the rear ; but they in a short time take up a similar position and become the front rank ; and so on continually until they are satisfied, or until the field has been thoroughly worked. At night the main body flies off to beds of reeds or osiers, where they roost. Often flocks from all parts of the surrounding country resort to one common roosting-place, and what a row — screaming and quarrelling one with another — they keep up for a considerable time before they finally settle. One of the most beautiful sights possible to imagine for a lover of birds is to watch the magnificent aerial evolutions performed by a flock of starlings an hour or so before going to roost. The late Dr. Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, so well describes these evolutions, that I cannot do better than quote him. " At The Starling. 145 first," he says, " they might be seen advancing high in the air like a dark cloud, which, in an instant, as if by magic, became almost invisible, the whole body, by some mysterious watch- word or signal, changing their course, and presenting their wings to view edgeways, in- stead of exposing, as before, their full expanded spread. Again, in another moment, the cloud might be seen descending in a graceful sweep, so as almost to brush the earth as they glanced along. Then once more they were seen spiring in wide circles on high, till at length, with one simultaneous rush, down they glide, with a roaring noise of wing, till at length the vast mass buried itself unseen, but not unheard, amidst a bed of reeds, projecting from the bank adjacent to the wood ; for no sooner were they perched, than every throat seemed to open itself, forming one incessant confusion of tongues. If nothing disturbed them, there they would most likely remain, but if a stone was thrown, a shout raised, or, more especi- ally, if a gun was fired, up again would rise the mass, with one unbroken rushing sound, as if the \yhole body was possessed but of I, 146 Ornithology and Agriculture. one wing to bear them on their upward flight." During the autumn and winter months the numbers of our native birds are increased very considerably by large flocks which come from further north, and from the Continent of Europe. I remember once, two years ago, seemg a large immigration arrive on the east coast. It was on a misty morning in October, and the birds kept dropping in by parties numbering from twenty or thirty to two or three hundreds. As they arrived they alighted in some hedges and trees near the coast. When they had all arrived, at the very lowest estimate I am confident there must have been ten thousand perched in the trees and hedges. Directly they alighted they commenced singing and flapping their wings as if performing a hymn of thankfulness for their safe arrival. The noise made by them was tremendous, and when heard a short distance off", it resembled the noise made by a rushing waterfall. If any one cares to have these entertaining birds about, they can easily establish them near their houses by fixing small nesting-boxes on The Starling. 147 the wall. If they do this the birds are almost sure to take possession of them, and I can guarantee that they will be fully repaid by having the pleasure of hearing the starling's song and watching their habits day by day.* * A friend of the writer, a farmer, determined last spring to exterminate the starlings from his farm buildings. As a start he obtained a ladder to take the young ones from the nest and destroy them. The first nest he examined was in the porch of his front door. According to his statement, however, when he got to the nest he found nearly a fire shovel full of grubs and caterpillars which had been brought there by the parent birds to feed their young. The result was that instead of destroying the latter he gave instructions that they were not to be disturbed ; on the contrary he now affords them all the protection in his power. — R. F. L 2 148 CHAPTER XI. MISCELLANEOUS SMALL BIRDS.— L BY O. V. APLIN, F.L.S. (Author of the "Birds of Oxfordshire") In considering the relations of small birds to the cultivation and produce of the ground, it is necessary to turn our attention principally to that branch of tilling the soil which comes more properly under the head of horticulture. But in these days, when fruit farming and vegetable culture on a large scale is often the best way of developing the resources of the land, it has now become almost impossible to separate the sister industries of horticulture and agri- culture. In modern ornithological works the thrush Miscellaneous Small Birds. 1 49 family is generally placed at the head of the list of British birds, and may therefore be dealt with first here. All our resident thrushes, the song thrush, missel thrush,'and blackbird, eat fruit (a good deal sometimes, it is feared) in gardens, and although the damage they do is often con- siderably exaggerated, there is no doubt that market gardeners and others growing fruit on a large scale for profit are liable to sustain con- siderable loss from the depredations of the thrush tribe, unless they protect their crops with net- ting, in which case they suffer damage to the amount of the expense they are put to.* On the other hand, the main food of these birds con- sists of worms, slugs, snails, grubs, and wild berries (in autumn). Gardeners have few worse enemies than slugs and snails, and the number of these consumed by blackbirds and thrushes is something enormous. It must be remembered that while it is possible to protect fruit from the birds, we should be utterly unable to cope * The importance of this question is shown in the Agricultural Statistics for the United Kingdom in 1890. " Small Fruits " are there returned as occupying 46,200 acres, or an increase of 4,300 acres on the previous year. " Orchards " also had a con- siderable increase. — O. V. A. 150 Ornithology and Agriculture. with the ravages of the hordes of slugs and snails which would overrun our gardens were they not kept in check by the self-same birds. The common hedge-sparrow is a most harm- less bird, and a great insect-eater, and the same must be said of the tree-creeper and wren. The robin will take a few currants in late summer, but he is essentially an insect-eater, and we have only to watch his operations on the lawn, or about the shrubberies, to convince ourselves of his fondness for these creatures and for worms. The nuthatch steals nuts in autumn, and in winter eats many large seeds, but all through the year it renders great service to trees by searching out the grubs and insects secreted in the bark. Some of our warblers, the blackcap, garden- warbler, common and lesser whitethroats, come to us (in numbers varying according to the position of the garden) for some of our small fruits for a week or two in late summer ; but there is generally a good deal of small fruit wasted in most gardens, and the little that the warblers take is probably never missed. Wild Miscellaneous Small Birds. 1 5 1 berries in the hedges content the greater number of these birds at that season, and in their visits to our kitchen gardens they may as often be seen busily hunting for insects as detected in furtively stealing a currant or raspberry. For the rest, they live during the time they are with us entirely on caterpillars and other insects, and feed their young on them. The blackcap, indeed, arriving very early in April, when the weather is apt to be very cold, and insect life scarce, will then eat the ivy berries which so providentially ripen at that season. The food of the nightingale is very similar to that of the birds just spoken of Willow, wrens come in numbers to gardens in late summer, but careful watching proves that the objects of their search are aphides, and small caterpillars, and other insects. Our other warblers are harmless or beneficial, and, indeed, these attributes may be truly claimed for the whole family. The wagtails and pipits are purely insect- ivorous, and very beneficial. The same may be said of the redstart, and if the whinchat,stonechat, and wheatear eat any berries, they are only -those of wild plants. The food of the wheatear 152 Ornithology and Agriculture. and whinchat is I believe exclusively insect- ivorous. Head money was formerly paid in some parishes for " tomtits," under the erroneous notion that the various species of titmice were injurious to gardeners. But, to quote from Yarrell's article on the blue titmouse : — " Yet none can be more mistaken than these men. If they watched more closely they would see that while all the buds were looked over, some of them only were picked open. Often a single bird or the whole family party will alight on a tree, and, after a very brief survey, will go to the next, where perhaps a long stay will be made. To man's eyes the two trees are just alike, and the buds at the same stage of growth — there is no seeming diiiference between any two on the same bough. The bird, however, knows better ; the germ of the one is sound, that of the other infected, and hence the choice it uses. Hardly any portion of the bud is eaten ; the egg or the insect already lodged there is the morsel sought. The bud, of course, when picked open is in most cases utterly destroyed, but with it is also destroyed the potential destroyer of more buds Miscellaneous Small Birds. 153 than any one can teil. The damage of which the gardener thinks he sees the doing has really- been done before, perhaps months before. There can, in truth, be little doubt that this titmouse, with others of the genus, is a very great bene- factor to the horticulturist, and hardly ever more so than when the careless spectator of its deeds is supposing it to be bent on mischief." This passage so admirably and consisely sums up the question of the supposed misdeeds of the tomtit that it cannot be too widely read by those inter- ested in the subject. Mr. Weir observed that a pair fed their young 475 times in the space of seventeen hours, bringing sometimes a single lafge caterpillar, at other times two or three small ones. Mr. Bond informed Messrs. Sharpe and Dresser that this titmouse " feeds its young very much with the small larvae of the goose- berry moth," and it is also said to feed on aphides and the grubs of woodboring beetles, " including Scolytus destructor — the worst foe of the elm, and on maggots from the round galls so common on young oaks.'' The food of the blue titmouse may be said to consist almost exclusively of insects and it 1 54 Ornithology and Agriculture. seldom seems to touch seeds or vegetable mat- ter. The greater titmouse varies its diet with seeds in winter, and both this species and the marsh titmouse are partial to beech-mast. Both the coal and the marsh titmouse are more addict- ed to a vegetarian diet than their congeners, but they usually confine their attention to various seeds, and the marsh titmouse does considerable good in gratifying its fondness for those of the thistle. The longtailed titmouse is almost, if not quite, insectivorous, and it is a pity its beautiful nest is so often destroyed. Titmice have been accused of pecking holes in apples and pears, but this can be of only occasional occurrence. The writer recently watched the operations of a coal-tit in an apple tree for a considerable time, and as it paid no attention to the ripening apples, but made a careful and exhaustive ex- amination of the shoots and leaves among the small branches, it was obvious that insects, and not fruit, were the object of its search. Familiar residents in our gardens and orchards during the colder portion of the year, we miss their presence to a considerable extent during the summer months, when their active, restless lives are spent Miscellaneous Small Birds. 155 in ridding the trees and hedges of those noxious insects and caterpillars with which they are in- fested* The starling has been purposely omitted here, as it has previously been fully dealt with in another article. Larks do some damage by digging up newly- drilled oats, and they have also been known to injure crops of autumn-planted wheat about old Michaelmas. But the time in which they can do mischief in this way is of short duration, and although it is said that their presence on the * In August, 1890, a letter appeared in the Standard from a gentleman at Innsbruck respecting the swarms of a species of butterfly which had that season invaded the parts of Bavaria about Munich. " The caterpillar," he writes, " of this butter- fly is the dreaded ' nun ' (Lifaris monacka) or Waldfrass, as it is termed in the vernacular, which periodically infests and de- vastates the vast forests of the lower Alpine slopes." So alarm- ing is this scourge that it is stated that on its appearance for the first time some landowners rashly cut down eaten plantations in the hope of exterminating the insect. Among the remedies now suggested the Standard correspondent calls special attention to one which has lately been pointed out, viz., the better preserva- tion and protection of certain birds. The species mentioned as eminently useful in destroying the nun are the greater titmouse blue titmouse, marsh titmouse, coal titmouse, long-tailed titmouse, tree creeper, and nuthatch — and among larger birds, the nightjar or goatsucker, and the cuckoo. 156 Ornithology and Agriculture. clover-backs in winter is not always without its disadvantages, yet they must consume an enormous number of the seeds of pernicious weeds* They also during summer, and indeed during most of the year, destroy a vast quantity of insects. Larks are very fond of frequenting fallows and newly-ploughed fields, where they cannot do any damage, and must consume countless insects and seeds of weeds turned up by the plough and cultivator. With regard to the various species of hard- billed birds, buntings, chaffinches, greenfinches, bramblings, tree and house sparrows, to be seen scattered over a newly-drilled field in spring, it may be said that the grains which are properly buried by the drill and harrow are safe from them, and they are only able to pick up the scattered and exposed corn. These birds must now be considered in detail. The reed-bunting in summer is confined to the vicinity of water. It feeds on various small seeds, including those * Since this was written the writer examined six larks, shot from a large flock at the end of November, 1890 (when there was a little snow on the ground), on a piece of barley stubble with clover. He found in them a few grains of barley, but was unable to delect the presence of any clover shoots or leaves. Miscellaneous Small Birds. 157 of some grasses, also on water and other insects. In autumn and winter it comes on to the arable land, and in hard weather is sometimes driven to frequent stack and cattle yards. The bunt- ing, sometimes called the corn bunting or bunt- lark, feeds largely on various seeds, and in autumn haunts the stubbles for grain. The young are fed on insects, and Mr. Gould saw the old birds feeding on cockchafers. In severe weather they may be seen about stackyards, and have been accused of pulling corn straws out of ricks for the sake of the grain. But let any one try to pull a straw with the ear attached out of a well built-rick ! The writer can say that he never saw any rick seriously damaged in this way. The familiar yellow-bunting or yellow- hammer feeds its young on insects, and these in summer constitute the food of the old birds also. Afterwards the seeds of many baneful weeds are consumed, especially those of the buckwheat tribe {Polygomim), as, for instance, the knot- grass (P. aviculare) and creeping persicaria {P. convolvulus). These two plants, indeed, seem to be attractive to many of our buntings and finches. Grain is sought for in winter, but on 158 Ornithology and Agriculture. account of its small, rather weak, bill the yellow- hammer seems to prefer the smaller seeds. Hard frost brings them to the stackyards, but they evince a great liking for the yards where cattle are wintered. Montagu observed that the young of the cirl-bunting, a rare species except in Southern England, were fed upon grass- hoppers, and he remarks that when older some captive birds, although they relished oats, al- ways rejected wheat and barley — small seeds being preferred. The chaffinch is a mischievous bird among some kinds of newly-sown and sprouting garden seeds, and it no doubt helps itself to newly- sprouted turnips in the fields ; but as farmers always cut out half or two-thirds of the young plants at a later stage (unless the crop has been much injured by the fly) any damage the " pie- finch " may do in this way is inappreciable. Its fondness for seeds and young plants of this family must result in the destruction of some noxious species, such as the wild radish, wild mustard, and charlock or " curlock." But in gardens protection must undoubtedly be given to certain newly-sown seeds, such as mustard, Miscellaneous Small Birds. 159 cabbage, radish, and others. The wire protec- tors which every gardener has to keep, in order to be able to raise peas in the presence of the sparrow, are excellent for this purpose. The useful services which the piefinch renders to man will, however, be recognised by any one who watches it closely all through the spring and summer. Then it may be seen busily catching insects on the wing, and searching the tree-tops and branches for its favourite caterpillars. On these it rears its young, and, apart from the occasional salad it robs us of, they form, with insects, the food of the adult at that season. Allowing its faults to the fullest it is, after all, our most insectivorous finch, and one of our most useful birds. In winter they are found about the stackyards (into which great quantities of weed seeds are carried with the harvest be it always remembered), on the fallows and stubble, especially those on which manure has been drawn. Here they are joined by, or join, their cousins the bramble-finches or bramblings, and the two species are often to be found about beech woods and avenues. These form the favourite haunts of the bramblings (which visit us only in 1 6o Ornithology and Agriculture. winter) so long as any " mast " is to be found. Afterwards they take to the open fields, where, in addition to scattered grain, they pick up nu- merous seeds of weeds. The late Mr. Scales, of Beachamwell, in Norfolk, considered them of service to the land by devouring the seeds of the knotgrass. The tree-sparrow is too shy to do our corn much damage. In summer it likes to live in pollard willows by the streams, and in apple orchards, and does not trouble the corn- fields. In winter, although forced to come on to the arable land to feed with the other small birds, its home is still in the tall hedgerows and lofty elms among the pastures, and small seeds are preferred to corn. Its mischievous and de- structive cousin, the house-sparrow, is left to be dealt with fully elsewhere. The hawfinch eats green peas when it happens to breed near a kitchen garden, but its regular food consists of the kernels of stone fruits, especially haws. Little seems known of the food of this shy bird in summer, but from the fact that it often breeds in deep woods and wooded country among pas- tures, it is probable that it consists largely of insects at that season. Miscellaneous Small Birds. i6i The Greenfinch is a great sinner among ripen- ing swede and turnip seed — so much so that growers have been compelled to gather the crop unripe and dry it at home. Yarrell says that the young are from the first fed entirely upon soft seeds, thus destroying countless weeds. Be this as it may, the summer haunts of the greenfinch seem to point to the fact that a good many insects are consumed at that season. The pre- dilection of the greenfinch for turnip seed will, however, make it a useful auxiliary of the farmer in destroying also other, and injurious, crucifer- ous plants — the charlock for instance. In winter flocks, often in company with tree-sparrows, are seen on the fallows, where they can find little but insects and weed seeds, most of the scattered grains of corn having long before been picked up. Growers of sunflowers for the sake of the ■seed must keep a watch on the ripening seed- heads, or a greenfinch may eat every seed, returning day after day until they are finished. The Goldfinch is a rnost useful and beneficial bird, both to the agriculturist and horticulturist, who should do all in their power to protect it. The goldfinch feeds its young on small caterpil- M 1 62 Ornithology and Agriculture. lars, and hence its presence in orchards, where it delights to build, and it should always be en- couraged. When it is not destroying insects it lives almost entirely on the seeds of the groundr sel, thistle, and other composite plants ; also on those of some trees and of the plantain, dock, and other pests which the farmer finds it so difficult to eradicate. The good done by the goldfinch, even now in the days of their scarcity, induces a wish that the numbers of this beauti- ful and useful little finch might have a hundred- fold increase. Linnets are also consumers of the seeds of thistles, charlock, and other common weeds, and are especially fond of those of the common dock. Siskins and Redpoles love the seeds of the alder and some other trees, and the latter re-~ semble linnets in their fondness for the seeds of docks, thistles, and other composite plants. All these birds are eminently beneficial, and the writer is not aware of any damage which they have been alleged to do. He may say the same of the twite, or mountain linnet, during its visits to Southern Britain, when it seems to Miscellaneous Small Birds. 163 prefer the seashore and the edges of muddy estuaries, but in the Shetlands it is said to do considerable damage to newly-sprouting corn. In reviewing the habits and food of those small birds which are accustomed to take a little corn in winter, it must always be. remem- bered that although the Titmice and some other species given to making careful searches for minute insects on the branches and trunks of trees, walls, and other likely spots are able to maintain themselves the winter through on their favourite food, yet it is not so with all small birds. Many of them which do us so much good in summer by destroying insects require to be kept alive on something else during the depth of winter. To them we should not grudge even a little stored corn, much less the scattered grain in the stackyards and at the barn-doors, which would be wasted, or at most eaten by the poultry, if the small birds did not claim a share. There can be no doubt that the Bullfinches do eat a large number of buds in early spring. Not only do they shear them off, but they actually eat them. Fresh, sound, hawthorn M 2 164 Ornithology and Agriculture. buds may be found in their crops, and it is a pity that they do not confine their attentions' to the hedges where they can do no harm. Un- fortunately they love the buds of fruit trees — e.g., the plum, pear, and gooseberry.* It is, one can easily understand, sufificiently exasperating to the fruit-grower to see a couple of bullfinches assiduously pruning off the fat buds of his trees ; but the actual damage that the growers suffer from the bullfinches is probably considerably exaggerated. The point is to ascertain how much less fruit a tree would have brought to maturity if the bullfinches had not visited it. In the early days of spring we see, say, a pear tree, with its fruit-bearing branches covered with large fruit buds. If the whole of them blossomed, and each blossom set, and each pear swelled, it would be impossible for the tree to carry and mature them all. Either the fruit ' A great deal of the damage done to gooseberry buds is the work of the sparrow, although it is almost always laid to the charge of the bullfinch. The latter is far from numerous as a species, but its habits and colours make it such a conspicuous bird in winter that it appears much more common at that season than it really is. If a pair appear in a garden they are almost always detected at once, and generally get blamed for all the damage the buds have suffered from any cause. — O. V. A Miscellaneous Small Birds. 165 would be deficient in size, or the branches would break. It is not contended that this is always the case, but it is to be observed that bullfinches generally go to the fullest trees. Let any one examine the ground under a fruit tree when the fruit is setting. If there has been a great show of blossom it will in most cases be found that a good deal of the unformed fruit has dropped off, and this in favourable seasons even, for occasions when the blossom has been cut off by a late frost must not, of course, be taken into account. Nature has, in fact, eased the tree of a burden it could not bear. It is, therefore, to say the least, an open question whether the trees which have been attacked would really have carried, and matured, a very much heavier crop of fruit if they had not, apparently, suffered from the bullfinches' beaks in early spring. Exceptional cases, when trees with only a small show of fruit buds have had most of them shorn off, must, of course, be excluded from this line of argument, but such cases, it is believed, do not often occur. After all, as Yarrell remarks, the effects of a late frost in destroying fruit is often laid to the charge of the bullfinch. 1 66 Ornithology and Agriculture. It is almost needless to repeat the warning, so often given, that a charge of shot fired into the young branches is far more injurious to the trees than the operations of several bullfinches ; and the injury done by the shot is permanent. The short period during which bullfinches can do any damage in this way must also be taken into consideration. All the rest of the year the bullfinches live away in the woods and fields, eating the hedge berries in their season, and, for the rest, consuming the seeds of many noxious weeds. The seeds of the dock, thistle, and other, composite plants, groundsel and plantain, are eaten by bullfinches, and the writer recently watched a small party of these birds busily feeding on the ripe seeds of the meadow-sweet {spired). Mainly on account of the retiring lives led by these birds during the greater part of the year, and especially at the time when they are engaged in rearing their young, less is known of their diet in the height of summer than of most birds. But it is highly probable that they feed their young to some extent on insect food, if they do not resort to it themselves just at that season. The late Mr. Edward Newman, form- Miscellaneous Small Birds. 167 erly editor of the Zoologist, details a strong piece of evidence respecting the insect-destroy- ing merits of the bullfinch. Writing in the peri- odical just mentioned of the larvae of Cheima- tobia brumata, he says : — " The apterous female of this very conimon species lays its eggs in the crevices of the bark of various trees and shrubs during November and December ; the larvae make their appearance in early spring, and commence their destructive career by eating into the young unexpanded buds. At this time of the year the bullfinches and titmice render the most important service to the gardener by their activity in devouring this little garden pest." The late Mr. H. Stevenson, of Norwich, remarks upon the fondness of the bullfinch for the seeds of thistles and other noxious weeds, and quotes an account of one individual in con- finement having eaten 238 seeds of the spear plume thistle in about twenty minutes, although plentifully supplied with hempseed. In reviewing the food and habits of feeding of our miscellaneous small birds, and endeavour- ing to form an opinion as to their merits or demerits in relation to agriculture, it will be 1 68 Ornithology and Agriculture. found that while many, perhaps most, of them do some harm, more or less, yet the damage is often very slight, and always confined to a more or less limited period of the year. On the other hand, evidence has in each case been adduced to show that during the rest, or during the whole of the year, they are one and all render- ing important services to the cultivator of the ground in destroying large numbers of insects, or the seeds of weeds difficult to extirpate and most injurious to the land. Several of our small birds have been inten- tionally omitted from this article, because their harmless and beneficial nature must be evident to every one who has for one moment considered the question. The swallow family, the chimney swallow, and the house and sand- martins, it is needless to say, are more particu- larly alluded to. And to those may well be added the swift, nightjar, and cuckoo. Several of the species previously treated of are abso- lutely innocuous, and largely beneficial, and among the hard-billed birds none can be more highly commended to the notice of the agri- culturist than the goldfinch. Miscellaneous Small Birds. 169 We can protect our crops from small birds to a large extent,* but without the latter we should be powerless to check the ravages which would be committed by the swarms of slugs snails, caterpillars and injurious grubs and insects which would soon overun our gardens and fields were the ranks of our feathered agents materially thinned. Let this be our rule then, to protect our crops from the birds when absolutely necessary, and at the same time to protect the birds which do for us what we could not possibly do for ourselves, namely, prevent those crops from being eaten up by the teeming hosts of insect life. The birds will also materially help to keep our fields free from weeds, and we in return must not grudge them in hard weather a portion of the cereals they have helped to raise. * The house-sparrow must be omitted from this possibihty on account of its large numbers and its destructive habits among ripe and ripening corn. 170 CHAPTER XII. GAME BIRDS AND AGRICULTURE. I.— THE PHEASANT. BY LORD LILFORD AND MR. O. V. APLIN. I CONSIDER the pheasant as by nature decidedly a friend to the farmer, but in this country, generally speaking, we may look upon pheasants as hand-reared, long-tailed poultry, which from their simple weight, in places where they are reared in large quantities, must do a certain amount of damage in growing crops of white corn or beans. Whether this damage is not amply compensated for by the value of the birds as articles of consumption, the employment of a number of men to guard and rear them, and the Game Birds and Agriculture. 171 opportunities that they afford to their owner for entertaining his friends, and making acceptable presents to those who cannot afford to buy game, is a question that I leave to be answered by those whom it may concern. — L. II.— THE PHEASANT. ^^ ^ The pheasant is naturally a bird of the woods. Damp hilly woods, with a good water supply in the bottom, is the beau ideal for aj pheasant's haunt, It is not a true granivorous bird by any means, and prefers insects, leaves, fruits, and various other vegetable substances. Phea- sants also eat the seeds of many plants, [and will, of course, eat all kinds of grain ; but peas, beans, and buckwheat, are always preferred to white corn. When we flush pheasant after pheasant from the standing barley near the wood early in September, we feel assured that the birds are there nierely because the crop gives them the cover their shy habits demand, and because they can pick up among it all sorts of insects and seeds and leaves of weeds. So long as the corn is in the ear the 172 Ornithology and Agriculture. pheasant rarely, if ever, troubles about it ; it is only after harvest that he becomes a gleaner of the scattered, grains knocked out when the corn was carried home. These he picks up indiscrimnately with various weed seeds and insects. So far it is evident that the pheasant is a bird which does little or no harm to the farmer. It remains to show that it performs many good offices for him. In early summer pheasants devour very eagerly the roots of the buttercup, which is a very pernicious weed in the eyes of the agriculturist, and a. very difficult one to get rid of. The pheasant also eats the seeds of weeds, and above all, it is a great devourer of noxious insects. What shall we say to this bird, when from the crop of one individual no less than 1,200 wire worms were taken. While another was found to have recently swallowed 440 grubs of the crane-fly, or " daddy-long-legs,"so destructive upon grass land. Is not this a "farmer's friend?" In autumn the pheasant wanders up the hedge- rows in search of blackberries and other hedge- fruit, and later on he stuffs his capacious crop with acorns. In very hard winters he doubtless Game Birds and Agriculture. 173 may want feeding, and may, perhaps then come round the stacks, but this is excuse- able.— O.V.A. III.— THE PHEASANT. The following additional testimony, on the food of wild pheasants in the Lake District, is from a Windermere correspondent of the Field. — " During the last autumn a cock phea- sant was killed near here, which upon a careful dissection of his crop, was found to contain the extraordinary number of ninety-three acorns. The bird was in splendid condition and beau- tiful plumage. The second bird, a cock also, was killed during the heavy snow and hard frost we have had during this winter, having had no opportunity of food but what might be found in the woods, &c. This also proved a remarkably fine bird, a surprising fact when it seemed to be a mystery how they could exist under the circumstances. However, this was discovered upon another dissection of the crop which was found to be full ; it contained a quantity of the fern, common polypody {Poly- 174 Ornithology and Agrculture. podium vulgare): This is an evergreen (the fronds even in severe frosts lasting till new ones are produced), growing luxuriantly on tree trunks, moist rocks, and mossy banks, easily distinguished by its large round patches of orange or tawny brown spore cases, no other of our native ferns having its fructifications at all similar in appearance." ^75 I.— THE PARTRIDGE. BY LORD LILFORD, SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, AND MR. O. V. APLIN. With regard to the grey partridge {Perdix cinerea), I fully endorse the opinion expressed below by Mr. O. V. Aplin and Sir Herbert Maxwell, and look upon this bird as a blessing to mankind from every point of view ; nor have I personally anything to say against our other British partridge — the red-legged {Caccabis rubra), although I fear the running habits of the latter species have now and thfen pro- voked some shooters over pointers into an indulgence in language, perhaps very excuse- able in the circumstances, but in itself undesir- able and useless, — L. II.— THE PARTRIDGE. The partridge is such a favourite with all of I 76 Ornithology and Agriculture. us, that a whole chapter might be devoted to the little brown bird which has adapted itself so well to civilization and improved agriculture as to multiply almost as fast as our human population. Let one fact be recorded to the credit of the partridge, that, multiply as he may, he is the farmer's friend, absolutely harm- less to crops of every sort, and feeding princi- pally on grass and weed seeds, and on the eggs and larvse of insects. — Sir H. M. III.— THE PARTRIDGE. All our gallinaceous birds prefer a diet of insects and miscellaneous vegetable substances to a diet of white corn when they can get it. Our domestic fowls, when they can go where they like, always wander away to the grass fields and sunny hedge-banks, where there is no grain, but plenty of insects, weed-seeds and leaves. So with the partridge. The covey seeks the standing corn as a shelter, not in order that they may feed on the grain. While the corn is in the ear they do not touch it ; but after harvest they glean the scattered " shell " grains, which often lie so thick on the ground in Game Birds and Agriculture. 177 the stubbles. Even then they do not eat much. They like other things better, and would rather take their meal in a rough grass field. The seeds of grasses and other wild plants, leaves of weeds, and insects, constitute the favourite food of the partridge. Let anyone who doubts this open and examine the crops of a few birds, and see for himself In hard weather they will sometimes draw round the stacks, but as often as not some hedge-bank or marshy place will afford them all they want even then. It is said, and truly enough, that the partridge follows culti- vation ; so do various noxious farm insects that the partridge feeds upon. But the partridge can, and does, live on open heaths and commons, where heath plants and fruits, with insects, form its food. I have found the crop of a bird killed at the foot of a range of Welsh mountains, filled entirely with the seeds and leaves of a kind of rush (carex). How fond partridges are of turnip fields ! They like the shelter of the leaves ; they like to dust themselves there in dry weather ; and they like to feed on the wire- worms, turnip moth grubs, and other pests which always infest such places. — O.V.A. N 178 THE RED GROUSE. Unlike the pheasant and partridge, which have their haunts on enclosed land, the Red Grouse is essentially a "moorfowl," and therefore comes less directly into contact with agriculture. The species, however, deserves mention in this connection, as during a certain portion of the year, it is, when opportunity offers, a grain- feeder. Sportsmen and poachers (especially the latter) know how keenly grouse appreciate feed- ing on the corn stooks along the moorland edges, especially when these are left out late in the season. The normal food of the grouse, how- ever, consists mainly of the extremities of the twigs of heather and ling. It is a common error that they prefer old and deep cover, and that the heavier the growth the more likely is it that birds will be found there. This is not really so ; they Game Birds and Agriculture. 179 prefer ling of low growth, and are generally found on ground which has been recently burnt — but which, of course, has had time to grow again. Insects (mainly beetles) are taken from the sunny braes in early summer, and in certain districts the birds devour quantities of mountain berries of several species. Of these, crow and wortleberries are most frequently partaken of Grouse are also fond of the berries of the haw- thorn when these are found near their haunts. The diet of very young birds consists mainly of insects. Oats is the favourite grain, and, in the north numbers of moorgame are noosed in procuring it. As already mentioned, the corn is procured from the stooks, and when these are removed the stubbles are cleared. The seeds of various grasses, and of several species of carex are much fed upon during certain seasons. The food of the Black Grouse is much more general than that of the above species. Its haunts are somewhat different, but its liking for grain — oats, especially — it shares in common with its congener. — THE EDITOR. N 2 i8o APPENDIX. THE ENGLISH SPARROW IN AMERICA. BY G. W. MURDOCK. (Late Editor of the " Farmer") Exactly forty years ago what is popularly termed the " English sparrow " (Passer domes- ticus) was introduced in the United States of America as an ornithological experiment. From the Pacific to the Atlantic the great problem now is how to exterminate the bird. Under what circumstances and through the agency of what causes has such a revolution in public opinion taken place with regard to the habits of one of the most familiar birds in existence ? We use the word " familiar " advisedly, for wherever man congregates in families, tribes, or Appendix. i 8 1 communities there will be found the sparrow, living, thriving, impudently audacious, and quite familiar to an almost irritating degree. The sparrow has never been a much valued bird. He is not of handsome plumage, he has no compensating attractions as a musician, and there is not much in him as a bird for the pie- dish. In scriptural days of old it was asked, " Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings ? " thereby implying that the bird was of trifling money value. It is true that we find the Psalmist saying " I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house-top," but the bird to which the Psalmist compared himself was not our familiar Passer domesticus but a thrush, or Passer solitarius, a very different kind of bird. But even before 1850, when the first common spar- rows were "transported," or rather carried to America, the character of the bird as a friend or foe of the farmer and the gardener was in question. The verdict against him was of the Scotch judicial order, " not proven," and a good many are still of opinion that the verdict should remain standing, while a few regard the bird as a pest, and on the other hand not a few as a 1 82 Ornithology and Agriculture. blessing. Let us glance for a moment at the experience of the United States during the forty years the birds have bred and extended them- selves. The story has been admirably told in a report just issued from the Ornithological sec- tion of the Agricultural Department at Wash- ington. It consists of over 400 closely-printed pages, and relates to an enormous mass of direct evidence as to the habits of the birds, and is, therefore, an invaluable and, as far as it goes, rateable basis for inductive generalisation. In the first place, we notice the remarkable adapta- bility of the sparrow to all conditions of human life. Wherever man migrated and settled there went the sparrow and thrived. The bird is at home in the scorching Southern States, and he can make himself quite comfortable in the ex- treme North- West. " The marvellous rapidity," says Mr. Merriman, the eminent American ornithologist, "of the sparrow's multiplication, the surprising swiftness of its extension, and the prodigious size of the area it has overspread, are without parallel in the history of any bird." The facts in support of this statement are over- whelming and need not be recapitulated. Just Appendix. 183 a few words here about the phenomenal fecun- dity of the sparrow. " It is not unusual," adds Mr. Merriman, " for a single pair in the latitude of New York, or further south, to rear between twenty and thirty young in the course of a year. Assuming the annual product of a pair to be twenty-four young, of which half are females and half males, and assuming further, for the sake of computation, that all live, together with their offspring, it will be seen that in ten years the progeny of a single pair would be 275,716,983,698. But for practical purposes, if we allow three years as the maximum of a spar- row's life, and allowing twenty as a maximum of annual births for each pair, the fecundity is enormous. Now, it. has been stoutly argued by the " friends of sparrows " that at least during breeding time they feed their young on insects, and, as a consequence, they do incalculably more good in that way than evil by the destruc- tion of ripening or ripe grain. Of course, there are useful and, in fact, beneficent insects, and the aforesaid " friends of the sparrow " have not at all times differentiated between the two classes in their inductions. Important evidence 184 Ornithology and Agriculture. on the subject was taken by the " Wild Birds' Protection " Committee of the British House of Commons in 1873. Some of the facts therein given in detail are certainly of a most important character as bearing on the good character of the sparrow. For instance : — Mr. Henry Myers, one of the largest market gardeners in the neighbourhood of London, was examined with the following result : — I believe you were led at one time of your life to re- consider your opinion about birds? — I suppose I have been in my time one of the greatest of sparrow destroyers. — You have the blood of a great many sparrows on your head ? — I had a sparrow club at one time ; I thought they were very injurious birds ; we killed them until scarcely one could be found on the premises. — Did you derive valuable results from that course? — No, on the contrary, we were eaten up with blight. — Will you be kind enough to tell the Committee what was your experience after so destroying the sparrows ? — After the sparrows became almost extinct we found blight of various kinds very much increase upon us, and it has done so ever since. I am glad to say sparrows are Appendix. 185 becoming more common with us now ; this year our trees are comparatively free from blight. The Committee will draw their own inference, but those were the facts. — As the birds have increased you have suffered much less from insects you say? — Yes, especially this year. Are you in the way of noticing the habits of the sparrows when they are in your gardens ? — To say that the sparrows do no damage would be wrong, but there is no doubt they do a larger proportion of good than they do harm. Mr. James Bell, gardener to the Duke of Wellington, at Strathfieldsaye, in Hampshire, gave most important evidence of a similar character, his observations extending to the habits of sparrows, wrens, robins, &c. The following is part of his evidence : — Does the sparrow give you any trouble ? — The only thing which I know against the sparrow is that after the peas come in, just about this season, they are very destructive to the green peas ; they peck the pods and destroy the peas. — Now, I will put the same question to you that I put to another witness : — If you were a market gardener, de- pending for your livelihood on the growth of 1 86 Ornithology and Agriculture. the fruit, should you protect the birds or not ? — I certainly would, because I would rather lose some fruit than have the whole crops destroyed by insects and caterpillars. — You think that the greater damage is on the side of the insect than the side of the bird ? — Yes, undoubtedly ; they come in shoals ; you may manage the insects in a very small garden, but you cannot manage them in an acre or two of fruit trees. — It is within your experience that where birds are encouraged, insects are kept down ? — I always find that we never have insects to any extent to damage the crops seriously where there are plenty of birds. Mr. Merrinian in his report has not scrupled to quote largely from the above ; his sole object being to get at "the bottom facts'' relating to the habits of sparrows. Summing up the vast amount of evidence taken all over the United States the following are the general conclusions : With regard to injury to buds, blossoms, &c., 584 reports were sent in, of these 265 alleged positive damage of varying kind and degree, 12 were undeterminate, and the remaining 307 were favourable to the bird. Appendix. 187 The compiler, however, points out that the greater part of the favourable reports (294) "have little weight, being brief monosyllabic negatives written in reply to the schedule questions, without anything to indicate the extent or closeness of the writer's observation.'' Almost all reports agree that considerable damage is done by the filthy habits of sparrows about houses and where there are ornamental trees. Grapes are grown extensively in the open in America, and the evidence is clear that sparrows are beginning to find out the value of this fruit, and consume it greedily. It is also credited with much damage to apples, other kinds of fruits, the young seeds of many kinds of green vegetables, plants, &c. The most valuable portion of the report, however, refers to the elaborate facts to be found in the tables of food as shown by dissections of the crops of the birds. In all and from every part of the country, and at all seasons of the year, 636 crops of sparrows were examined minutely, many of them within an hour and a half after death. The net result was that wheat was found in 22 crops, oats in 327, corn (maize) in 71, fruit 1 88 Ornithology and Agriculture. seeds in 57, grass seeds in 102, weed seeds in 85, undetermined vegetable matter in 129, bread, rice, &c., 19, noxious insects in 47, beneficial insects in 50, insects of no economic importance in 31. Having these hard facts before us the general verdict against the sparrow must be rather decisive, and that too without taking into account its impudent and most disastrous interference with the breeding of other and un- doubtedly beneficial birds, such as martins, &c. i89 NOTES AND ADDITIONS. I.— ROOKS, CROWS, AND SPARROWS. BY HARRISON WEIR, F.R.H.S. I FIND that SO far back as 1611 there was a great outcry against special grievances, and the increase of rooks, crows, and sparrows was one of these. It was called the common complaint, and chiefly arose from the dearness of corn at this period. I give an excerpt : — " The greatest devourers of corne, of these kind are rookes, Crowes, and sparrowes, the number whereof is infinite, and so is the quantitie of corne which they destroy yearly," and after stating of the damage they do in various ways, it is pointed out that " all of which, or the most part of them, may easily be destroyed in three yeares ; onely, igo Ornithology and Agriculture, by pulling downe of their nests in breeding time, not suffering any of them to breed, every man to undertake for his own ground upon a penaltie, to the use of the poore of the parish." So it seems that it is no new thing the outcry against the above birds, but for my own part I am strongly in favour of rooks being of more use to the farmer than any harm that they may do. For a long series of years I have watched them carefully, and I am of opinion they will not touch ripe corn unless driven to do so from want of their proper food — worms, grubs, and insects. While writing about the rook, I may mention one or two incidents that have come under my observation lately. One is that a colony of rooks began to build in a clump of trees near here. They were unmolested, as far as I could learn, but last spring, instead of making ready their nests for breeding purposes, they suddenly pulled them all to pieces and carried away the sticks to other trees at some distance. Also I have three rooks come into my garden to be fed in hard weather. I know these rooks well, they feed generally on or about the railway, and are three in number. Well, during the very dry Notes and Additions. 191 weather in the breeding season, I put out food and water for them, when I noted each filled its beak with food as much as it could carry, and then flew away to some distant tree where, I believe, there were nests. Now, what I want to know is, are there two hens to one cock bird in a nest ? This looks like it, and it has been so stated before. As regards the " crow," I know so little positively of its habits that I will say no- thing. As regards the sparrow, when sparrow clubs were rife about here, I was strongly in favour of the bird being of use rather than harm- ful. After more than a quarter of a century's careful observation, I am now quite of a contrary opinion. It is all very well for people to assert they catch so many caterpillars every five minutes during the daytime, while they are feeding their young, and so many caterpillars in such time make so many a day, and so on. When the sparrows' young are very small, they get aphides for them if they can, then cater- pillars, &c., but failing these, they take the small buds from the gooseberry bushes, the apple-trees, all bloom buds as a rule, and those of the haw- thorn. They pick off the peas as they appear ig2 Ornithology and Agriculture. above ground, also the radishes, lettuces, and many other things. I know this, for I have found this food in the crops of both old and young. For years and years they picked off apple blossoms, and many hundreds of gar- den primroses and polyanthus, to say nothing of crocus and other things, even to the bloom buds of the lilac, besides which they drove away quantities of insect-eating birds. I know now of several places that used to have house martins' nests about them, but the sparrows have driven them all away ; and last year I went to look, and the martins are there no longer, in places that I have known them to build nearly all my life, and where, when the sparrow clubs were in force, there were nests in plenty. What I want to know is, that in the face of all this, and from actual knowledge from many years of observa- tion, why there are certain people who do not take half the trouble to be correct in the matter, will persist in praising this pest of a bird (I speak of country life), and tell us, who after long experience (and who began in favour of the birds) that we know nothing and all are wrong. And this also I know, and that is the fearful Notes and Additions. 195 havoc that sparrows make in the half-ripe and the ripe cornfields. I know the pest they are in the poultry-yards, eating the food of the fowls and chickens, and the trouble they are in picking holes in the thatch of ricks and stacks. Over fifty years I have studied bird life, and I fear- lessly say, that with the exception of the bull- finch, there is no bird that does so much injury to the gardener and the farmer. The bullfinch only does harm in the spring, but the sparrow never ceases. It is increasing vastly and to the detriment of better birds ; some idea of the quantities of sparrows about the country may be formed when I mention that one bird-catcher told me that in two months, last autumn, he caught five hundred and four dozen, and might have caught more had he cared to do so. O 194 II.— ROOKS. BY H. W. E. I HAVE been much interested in what I have read on Ornithology, and there can be no doubt that much of the increase of birds in and about gardens is due to the destruction of the larger carnivorous birds. But in many parts of the country these large birds have long ceased to be common, or sufficient to preserve the balance of bird life. Two other causes have largely con- tributed to the increase. First, the gun-tax, or licence, which has very perceptibly decreased the number of guns in country villages. I can remember when, in weather like the present, almost every boy in the village managed to get hold of a gun, and I remember one old gentleman saying that there were more guns than sparrows ; now the possessors of guns Notes and Additions. 195 are very few. The other cause is the Act pro- hibiting the use of poisoned grain. When I first came here, I knew of but one rookery in the parish, and that at one time was almost de- stroyed by the rooks being poisoned in the wheat fields. Now there are certainly a dozen rookeries within a mile of my house. — (From the Gardener's Chronicle^ O 2 196 III.— THE BARN-OWL. BY T. SOUTHWELL, NORWICIL Mr. Watson's plea for the Owl family ought to be sufificient to convince the most sceptical of the immense benefits conferred by birds of this class upon the farmer, but I will ask him kindly to allow me to supplement his brief remarks upon my favourite, the barn, or white owl, than which I believe there is not a more useful bird to be found, or one which is treated with baser ingratitude. Writing about 1845, Mr. Lubbock says :— " In most extensive farming establishments a pair have possession of the barn, and may be seen every evening beating the marshes regularly for mice." Would that this were applicable to the present time ! On the contrar>', the barn Notes and Additions. 197 owl IS becoming a scarce bird, and, when found, rarely for long escapes the deadly engines of the gamekeeper, or is foully slaughtered, that its dismembered remains may form a ghastly orna- ment in the hat of the gentler (?) ses:. All the year round the barn owl is most in- dustriously waging war against the pests of the farm, but in summer, when it has young to pro- vide for, the quantity of small rodents it destroys is enormous. Owing to the strictness with which game is preserved in the present day, the rats in summer have it all their own way ; no ferretting can be done, and dogs must not hunt the hedgerows when the partridges are nesting, so the rats multiply exceedingly in conse- quence. I doubt whether any living creature is more destructive to game in the breeding season than rats ; but what are the owls doing at that time ? Mr. Frank Norgate counted twenty-six good-sized rats in the nest of a single barn-owl, and as they were all quite fresh and the weather very warm, there is no doubt they were all killed the previous night. Let those who know the destruction committed by rats when they have young ones, which is almost all the year round, 198 Ornithology and Agriculture. try to realise the service performed by this pair of birds, and then judge of the wisdom of allow- ing them to be destroyed ! I have repeatedly examined the pellets thrown up by owls, and have invariably found them to consist of the remains of small rodents and shrews, with an occasional sparrow or finch. There is nothing but good to be said of the barn-owl. And how do we reward them for all these services ? There is scarcely a gamekeeper's gibbet which is not festooned with owls and kestrels, and bird-stuffers' workshops are full of them. Mr. Gurney says : — " I have counted nearly fifty barn-owls in a Norfolk bird-stufifer's shop, but hope never to see such a sight again 1 " Can we wonder at the plague of rats which is proving so destructive to the farm crops, when their natural and untiring enemies are thus destroyed ? I am happy to say that there are a few proprietors in Norfolk who encourage these useful birds, and afford them secure nest- ing-places, in the form of tubs placed in the trees, but this is quite the exception. Their usual reception is the hail of shot, or that inven- tion of the evil one, the steel trap, which is Notes and Additions. 1 99 specially fatal to these birds. No more horrible instrument of torture was ever devised than this abominable thing. The owners of shootings cannot plead ignorance of the horrors inflicted by the steel-fall. It is not the keeper's fault. As has been truly said, " the true barbarian is the master who permits the massacre." Some time since I saw a poor jay fixed by the thigh in a cruel steel-trap, the bone broken, and the muscles lacerated and bleeding, its beautiful feathers ruffled, as it hung, head downwards, with just sufficient strength left to raise its head and give, as I fancied, one pitiful glance of languid but excruciating misery. And yet the proprietor of that wood is a kindly gentleman, deservedly respected for his readiness to help all who appeal to him in their distress. Let the reader turn to an admirable article on " Birds," in the Nineteenth Century for December, 1890, by Sir Herbert Maxwell, for a vivid description of the "pole-trap," every word of which I can verify, and I think he will endorse Sir Herbert's conclusion, that " not only ' the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty,' " but also that " enacted among the fairest scenes 200 Ornithology and Agriculture. of nature, cruelty seems to take a deeper shade by contrast." Truly we are a strange people. We enact a law which prohibits the inoculation of mice and guinea pigs with the virus of dis- ease, hoping thereby to discover the means of rescuing from premature death generations of men and animals yet unborn, but leave one of the best friends of man, the barn-owl, to so cruel a fate. It may be pleaded that these traps are not placed for the owls, to which they are so fatal, but for birds of prey which are (or are sup- posed to be) obnoxious to man. But even for this there is no excuse, and, once more to quote Sir Herbert Maxwell, if they must be killed, " in the name of all that is merciful, let them be done to death cleanly and fairly by powder and shot, and let no one with the remotest claim to rank as a sportsman sanction these infernal pole- traps, which are just as likely to catch and torture an innocent kestrel (or barn-owl), that never struck at anything heavier than a field- mouse." 20I IV.— THE KESTREL AND SPARROW- HAWK. A Gamekeeper's (Mr. Millward) First Letter. The owl, being purely a nocturnal bird, does not enjoy the same opportunity of preying on game as the hawk, but many a leveret, young rabbit, and young game-bird falls a victim to the brown owl. The white owl I exonerate from all blame whatever. Lord Lilford's statement was made con- cerning the gormandising powers of the owl, so I can hardly see how it can be fairly applied to the kestrel-hawk. Hawks are like human beings, they prefer the good things of this world, and are perfectly able to discriminate between good and bad. They much prefer young pheasants and partridges to mice ; at 202 Ornithology and Agriculture. least, that is my experience of them in a tame state. I do not deny that they destroy quantities of mice, but I contend that in the breeding season, when young birds abound, they give the mice a holiday. I have known the kestrel-falcon destroy whole coveys of partridges. If they once find out the locality of a covey, they never cease harassing it till all or the greater part are destroyed. The tender tiftle'things are unable to wander far, and are easily espied from the kestrel's lofty point of observation. It is just the same with pheasants. Every year in the rearing fields we shoot several ; they are daring robbers, boldly fetching the birds — without seeming fear — from the coops, within a few yards of the keeper. One brute took fifteen, to my knowledge, before we were able to administer the death he deserved. I have known young hawks, — kestrels just flown — attack and carry off pheasants six weeks old. I do not urge the utter extinction of any wild birds, but I am of opinion that the kestrel Notes and Additions. 203 is quite out of place on the game preserves. There are many locahties in which they are allowed to live unmolested, and doing no harm, but in the preserves under my charge I shall continue to exercise summary jurisdiction on their kind. They may be an object of interest to the few, but the game provides nourishing food for the many, and I think that the farmer is more likely to value the coveys on his farm than the benefits which may accrue from the death of the few rodents destroyed by the kestrel. It has been my lot to destroy many promis- ing broods of young kestrels, and among the remains found in such abundance about their nests, the remnants of the smaller tribe of birds and young game-birds always predominated to a large degree. On the sparrow-hawk I shall say nothing ; he is universally known as a robber and a rascal. Mr. O. V. Aplin's Reply (First). " A Gamekeeper " states that his experience of the kestrel in a tame state is that they much prefer young pheasants and partridges 204 Ornithology, and Agriculture. to mice. I have kept kestrels myself, and conversed with others who have done so, and I can only say that my experience and theirs has been diametrically opposite. L do not think that any practical naturalist will deny that kestrels occasionally take to game poaching. It is generally at the time when they have a young brood to provide for that this happens ; the large demands upon their activity made by a growing family causes them to fall before temptation, presented by young game-birds, to provide a dinner easily and quickly. But we protest against the occasional depredations of a few of its members causing the destruction of the whole of a beneficial race. As to the usual habits of the kestrel, I will only say, go out into the fields and watch him. A thousand times have I seen him beating over ground where I knew his only prey could be small animals and insects, once or twice only have I seen him strike at birds. But I will fully allow that had I been in the habit of watching pheasant coops I should most pro- bably have come across one or more poaching kestrels before this. Notes and Additions. 205 After all " A Gamekeeper " strikes the right note in one paragraph in his letter. It has never been contended that the kestrel is strong enough to kill a full-grown or nearly full-grown English game-bird, so that the period during which it can do any mischief is confined to the few weeks when the game-birds are young and small. And all the rest of the year the kestrel is doing not only no harm, but a great deal of good. What foe is there much more to be feared by the game-pre- server than the rat? And in the face of the reports we have recently received of the swarms of mice and rats which have been over-running some of our Eastern and Scotch counties, farmers should be chary of permitting the destruction of one of the greatest enemies of these animals. To speak of a farmer valuing "the coveys on his farm " more than " the benefits which may accrue from the death of a few rodents destroyed by the kestrel " is simply misleading. In conclusion, I should, as a friend of the kes- trel who would be glad to know all he can about this hawk's true character, very much like to see any exact and authenticated accounts of the re- mains of food found by " A Gamekeeper " about 2o6 Ornithology and Agriculture. the nests of the "many promising broods of young kestrels " (undoubtedly proved to be so) which it has been his lot to destroy. And, respecting another subject (touched by " A Gamekeeper ") I should like to ask him how he accounts for the fact that " many a . . . young game- bird falls a victim to the brown owl." Not for one moment would I think of denying the state- ment made by one who prima facie ought to know all about it ; but what puzzles me is this. I have often watched the brown or tawny owl issue forth from his diurnal retreat, and have observed that this takes place after sunset or just before nightfall, at which time hand-reared pheasants should surely be safely housed, and the hen par- tridge has gathered her brood under her wings. Controversy apart, I should be honestly glad of some facts relating to this point. I know that the long-eared owl (another dark brown species, frequenting woods) is said to feed more on birds, and to fly earlier in the evening, but of the habits of this species I have no personal knowledge. A Gamekeeper's Second Letter. Since forwarding my previous communication, I have come across in " Rod and Gun " of Notes and Additions. 207 November ist a letter from a gamekeeper who gives his address. Amongst other things the writer says : — " I have caught the brown-horned owl, but no other, killing pheasants, partridges, leverets, and young rabbits ; " also " the kestrel- hawk is not so quick as the sparrow-hawk in his movements, but he is equal in destructiveness of pheasants and partridges. I have killed four kestrels aijd three sparrow-hawks in tlje act of taking young pheasants from the coops in the rearing field." Mr. Aplin owns that occasionally the kestrel preys on game-birds, but I must reiterate the fact that it is their principal food, so long as the game is small enough for them to capture ; and the above letter certainly bears me out. Of course it is only during a few weeks that the kestrel is able to do much harm ; but during those weeks, there are extra mouths to feed, and the food required to rear the family is enormous in its amount. Mr. Parkinson was kind enough to furnish us with a statement as to how many mice it takes to appease a kestrel's appetite ; would he do us the favour of showing how many little partridges and pheasants it would 2oS Ornithology and Agriculture. require to exercise the same effect on Mr. Hawk ? Like Mr. Aplin, I have spent much leisure time watching the kestrel, for the purpose of assuring myself whether he was a friend to me or no ; and I must say that the conclusion I have arrived at is a decided negative. • • • • « I have never heard of a kestrel carrying off a full-grown game-bird. I once saw a kestrel take away a young pheasant, though certainly not nearly fullly-grown. On the other hand, has Mr. Aplin ever heard of a kestrel killing a full-grown rat? I have not. The rat is one of the gamekeeper's weakest foes, and not to be compared to the stoat or weasel ; besides, it is easily kept down by con- stant and competent trapping. The most it can do is to destroy a nest of eggs, and occasionally, a young bird. Although the kestrel certainly destroys young rats, I do not think he is much help to us among the old ones. Had I an- ticipated the present correspondence last sum- mer, I would have kept a record of the remains Nutes and Additions. 209 found about the kestrels' nests on this manor. However, another season, should opportunity permit, I hope to enable Mr. Aplin to see for himself what they will do. I once kept a trio of kestrels in a tame con- dition ; they were capital mousers, but exhibited a decided preference for the young birds I often gave them. Many a chicken fell a victim to them ; they would pounce on them from their favourite position (the top of a clothes-post) and covering them with their wings, look as innocent as babies unborn. Besides, one of them was a match for any old hen in the yard. Both varieties of owls are constant rat- catchers. The brown owl frequents the streams at night and kills numbers of water-rats, as I have on several occasions found the remains. But, alas ! he kills other things as well. When one finds a leveret partly eaten, and showing unmistakable signs that an owl is the delinquent, and when on putting a trap to it you capture the owl, I think that is both convincing and conclusive. George Shaw, M.D., in his excellent " General Zoology,'' says of the brown owl : — " In the dusk they approach our dwellings and P ; lo Criiitho'''ry and Agriculture. will frequently enter pigeon-houses, and make great havoc in them. They destroy numbers of little leverets, as appears by the legs frequently found in their holes. They also kill abundance of moles," &c., &c. If Mr. Aplin was a gamekeeper, he would be aware that there is a certain period of the young pheasant's existence during which they are not strong enough to fly to roost, and are far too wary to allow of the keeper shutting them in the coops. It is the period when their wild nature causes them to commence to assert their inde- pendence. This is the time when the keeper must be on the alert against their numerous enemies. It was on an occasion like this that, hearing a commotion among the birds, I crept quietly along and distinctly saw a brown owl make several ineffectual attempts to seize a young pheasant. The white barn owl is a great friend to all. I cannot, nor do I believe any one else can re- late the least harm concerning it. Mr. Aplin's Rejoinder. I think there is too much trapping done in a " well-stocked game preserve," for " all kinds of Notes and Additions. 2 1 i food " to abound. A kestrel dwelling in or near such a locality is living under more or . less artificial conditions. And with so many semi- tame young game-birds moving about, the hawk is no doubt tempted more than he is able to resist, and far more than he would be tempted under natural conditions. He gets demoralised, in fact, and becomes a " poaching kestrel," such as the one figured in the shooting volume of the Badminton Library. Mr. E. T. Booth writes, — " I never yet heard of the young of either partridges or pheasants being carried off from wild broods (my italics), neither have I seen young grouse among the victims on their nest- ing-places." And this, be it remembered, was the experience of one who had possibly seen as much of the kestrel in many parts of the country as most men, I was going to say as any man. Nevertheless, there is no doubt, as I previously stated, that kestrels will occasionally take to game poaching. At the risk of making this letter a very long one, I cannot resist quoting from the chapter on " Vermin " — so much to the point on this particular question — by the Hon. Gerald Lascelles, contained in the " Field and P 2 212 Ornithology and Agriculture. Covert" shooting volume of the Badminton Library. " As a rule there is no more harmless bird than the common kestrel, or windhover, commonly confused by ignorant and unobser- vant keepers with the sparrow-hawk, and ruth- lessly destroyed by them. . . . The kestrel may lay claim to being one of the farmer's best friends in existence. Its principal food consists of the common field-mouse, and of the numerous beetles and larvse which it can glean from the face of the land. . . . Very rarely, indeed, does it seize a bird of any kind, and then only if they are crouching on the ground, but its weak feet and lack of courage render it quite unable to hold even a three-parts grown partridge. There is one occasion, and one only, when the kestrel should be killed without mercy. It is when an old bird, having a brood at home to bring up, finds out the coops where a number of pheasants or partridges are being reared. Having once discovered with what ease she can take any of the tiny, half-tame, wholly foolish little creatures, she will return again and again till she has destroyed the entire lot. Let that kestrel be killed without an hour's delay, but let Notes and Additions. 213 not that be made an excuse for killing, in future, every individual of a species which does so much good." He points out that animals, like human beings, are prone to contract bad habits ; but because one kestrel had taken to visiting the coops, and paid the penalty, it did not follow that every other kestrel need do the same. And he gives an instance in point. Three hundred pheasants were being reared by a keeper, in a field partly surrounded by a wood of consider- able extent. In this wood were the nests of six pairs of kestrels, none of which was more than three-quarters of a mile from the coops. The keeper, who had been ordered not to molest kestrels, soon came with a piteous tale that the young birds were carried off before his very eyes. He was ordered to wait and shoot every hawk found in the act of skimming down over the coops. The first day he shot a male and female kestrel in the very act of taking the birds. He was told to shoot any hawks he could catch within range of the coops, " but let them come to you, do not go to them." Not another kestrel was killed that year ! though the other five pairs all reared their broods, and their nests 2 14 Ornithology and Agriculture. were no further otf than that other pair which fell into bad habits and died in consequence. Let the keeper use his discretion, then, and while he will do well to kill any individual kestrel that does harm to him, he should be restrained from killing down too closely such useful birds. Lord Walsingham in the chapter on " Rearing," in the same volume, writes, " Kestrels will attack very young birds, but scarcely any after three weeks old." With regard to the brown or tawny owl (Syrnium aluco) killing young game birds I was glad to see that the game-keeper's letter in " Rod and Gun," quoted by. Mr. Millard, strongly sup- ports the impression I had that the habits of this bird militated very much against it being guilty of this offence. The writer quoted says, " I have caught the brown, horned owl " {Asio otus) " but no other killing pheasants, partridges. . . ." And I may point out that as far as the informa- tion given in Mr. Millard's letter goes, as he has himself only on one occasion seen the brown owl in the act of making several (ineffectual in this case) attempts to seize a young pheasant. As to the brown or tawny owl killing leveret§ Notes and Additions. 215 I never had the least doubt of it, and more than a year ago stated in print that they occasionally did so. The late Mr. E. T. Booth (of whom more anon) was of opinion that the only complaint that game preservers could make against the brown or tawny owl was that it might now and then take young rabbits or even leverets. With regard to Mr. Shaw's statement that brown owls enter pigeon-houses, and make great havoc in them, I hope I shall not be considered duly sceptical when I say I do not attach much importance to this assertion. Shaw was a compiler, rather than an observer, I believe. I could give an authenticated in- stance of the barn-owl being accused of commit- ting like havoc. Indeed, its accuser went so far as to say that he had seen it come out of the pigeon-house with a bird in its claws. But when the owl was shot on a subsequent evening in the very act, it was found to be carrying a rat and not a pigeon.* I certainly am inclined to think that the brown owl's visits to the pigeon-houses were paid for a like purpose. Mr. Millard asks if I have ever heard of a * This occurre4 under my own eyes.^EfiJTOl?, 2 1 6 Ornithology and Agriculture. kestrel killing a full-grown rat. I have, and will quote my authority presently, but I am glad that Mr. Millard himself allows the good offices of the bird in cutting off these pests in the days of their youth. As to the rat being one of the gamekeeper's weakest foes, it may not, as your correspondent remarks, be compared with the stoat or weasel (the rat's enemies by the way), but I have always looked upon it as a most de- structive beast, and Mr. Millard allows that it destroys nests of eggs, occasionally a young bird also, and neecjs " constant and competent trap- ping '' to keep it down. The Hon. Gerald Lascelles places the rat in his list of the worst kind of vermin, and says of it, " an inveterate egg poacher, and is also very destructive to partridges and pheasants." He also adds, " nothing is so ruinous to the perfect quiet which is so necessary to the welfare of newly-hatched game as the presence of vermin of this kind among the hens and coops." — Bad- minton Library. As to the destruction of rats by the kestrel I will quote the late Mr. E. T. Booth, of Brighton. " The rc^ts alone which thes^ birds destroy while Notes and Additions. 217 procuring food for their young would commit ten times more damage in one year than the poor, inoffensive hawks in their whole lives." . . . " I particularly remarked some years back, when I was engaged in taking notes re- garding their food and habits, that rats (none less than three parts grown, and many full sized) formed a part, and in some instances the whole, of the food that the old birds had provided for their brood at a dozen nests I examined in various districts in Scotland. 2l8 v.— THE HOUSE-SPARROW. BY W. H. TUCK. Will you allow me to supplement the inter- esting remarks about the sparrow, which seems to me to be by far the most important bird in the agricultural interest, by reason of its great abundance everywhere. I have watched and studied this bird for forty years, and I regret to say that in my opinion the little good it does is more than counter- balanced by its misdeeds. I am prepared to admit that at certain seasons sparrows consume a number of seeds and wild plants injurious to the farmer, such as knotgrass (polygomen aviculare), and that during the very early stage of their nestlings' existence they feed them with aphides and other insects, but in a week or so this diet is changed for peas and young wheat Notes and Additions. 2 1 9 when procurable. Who has ever seen the sparrow feeding on the wireworm, turnip nigger, or gooseberry grub ? One morning last sum- mer, in the middle of June, I saw thousands of the larvae of the small ermine moth ( Yponomenta padella), which had just denuded a fine thorn in a London square of every leaf, and were letting themselves down by gossamer-like threads on to the railings of the enclosure, and marching off to another tree, but although their line extended for many yards, and plenty of sparrows were sitting on the railings, I never saw them attempt to eat one. They were simply looking after the corn on the neighbouring cab-stand. The sparrow is not a particularly early riser ; the greenfinch is up and has done a morning's work before it will even utter its sleepy chirp, and it wakes up in time to get a good meal when the poultry are first fed, and then loaf about the house and buildings until it can get another meal gratis. In August, when the last of their broods — of which they often have three — are ready to fly, they go off en famille to the ripe corn, and are joined by the town sparrows, whp anniially tJ^ke their siimrner guting. Th? 2 20 Ornithology and Agriculture. town bird returns when the corn is gathered, but the country bird lingers about the fields until the last rakings are gathered, and the shortening days send them back to the farm- yards. A flock of sparrows, allowing that each will consume thirty grains of corn daily, will do more harm than several hares and rabbits. Then, again, they drive away, by their numbers and pugnacity, many of our sweetest songsters of the soft-billed species, and turn the eve-swallow or martin — a purely insectivorous bird — out of its nest. What gardener, too, in spring, has not had his early primroses and crocuses plucked off in sheer wantonness by them ? When we see that eminent naturalists like Messrs. J. H. Gurney and Frank Norgate in our own country, and the late Mr. E. T. Booth are arranged against the sparrow, we can under- stand the outcry made in our colonies since the birds were introduced there, and Pope's lines, " Welcome the coming, speed the parting, guest," are realised with a vengeance ; but I fear the guest is not so ready to take the hint, but, like Soapy Sponge, remains on the spot, not alto- gether a blessing frorn the n}other country, JANUARY, 1893. MESSRS. W. H. ALLEN & CO.'S GENERAL CATALOGUE, Al/ bound in Cloth ttnless otherwise stated. Ibistori?— 3nbia. SIR J. W. KAYE and COLONEL G. B. MALLESON. 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