Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/403

Rh least trustworthy, and in touch with the knowledge of the day, we can heartily recommend this inexpensive publication; and its writer clearly has the potentiality of producing a yet larger and more exhaustive work on the same subject.

Passer domesticus is now fully convicted as a pestilent marauder to the crops of our fields and gardens. The verdict is almost unanimous by a competent jury that includes many ornithological authorities once inclined to the non-proven theory. For an absolute acquittal one might appeal in vain to any experienced farmer or horticulturist. It is a purely human parasite. "No Sparrow's nest is ever to be found a quarter of a mile from a human habitation." Its enemies are actual sufferers by its depredations; it is defended by sentiment combined with an utter ignorance of its life-history. This small volume is an excellent review and summary of the reasons that are procurable, and can be multiplied, for an authorized diminution of its numbers by justly incensed agriculturists and gardeners. An appendix by Miss E.A. Ormerod supplies the particulars of the monthly toll it levies on our fields and gardens. In America it is reported by the United States Department of Agriculture "as one of the greatest pests which could have been introduced" into that country.

are surprised to find, from a perusal of this "pamphlet"—to follow the designation of the author—that no fewer than 322 species are recorded as inhabiting this district, of which an excellent definition is given in the preface. "This is altogether a very clearly marked and well-defined faunal area, and particularly rich in its avi-fauna, from the fact that off the mouth of the