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2, which is given by the writers he so loudly condemns ('House-Sparrow,' p. 12 et seq.).

The Sparrow does harm in many other ways, but these need not be here considered: the chief charge against it is that it eats corn,—corn when it is newly sown, corn soft and milky, corn ready and ripe to be harvested, and corn which is thrown out for fowls.

The Sparrow is a bird which is annually increasing in this country, as it is in other countries where it has been introduced, and the question is becoming a serious one for farmers, who, with the present low price of wheat, are hard put to make two ends meet, without this new and feathered item against them in their balance-sheet.

Recent investigations have conclusively shown that the Sparrow does not destroy nearly so much insect-life as was supposed. . Old Sparrows, as a rule, do not eat insects. The larvæ which form the customary food of young Sparrows are, for the most part, species which prey on shrubs and plants, but not on corn, such as Teras contaminana, Triphæna pronuba, and Pontia brassiccæ.