"Wee Tim'rous Beasties" Part 4

"Brutal," I murmured.

"Brutal! not a bit of it. You can't feed more than a certain number of nestlings; besides which, there wouldn't be room in the nest. As it was, I fell out before I could fly."

"What happened then?"

"Why, the old folks came and fed me, and helped me back again the shortest way up the bark. Brutal, wasn't it? A martin wouldn't do that."

"Which reminds me," said I, "that you were not born in a martin's-nest.

Are trees the fashionable quarter just now?"

"They've come in more since thatched roofs went out," said the sparrow.

"It's tree or martins'-nests nowadays."

"You do really drive away the martins, I suppose?"

"Yes," he sn.i.g.g.e.red; "poor, dear little martins! Look here," said he, and his voice changed from a sn.i.g.g.e.r to vicious earnest. "We sparrows are just about sick of being accused of bullying martins. White of Selborne started it, but he didn't know what it would lead to. Would you like to know the truth of the matter?"

It was one of the things I did want to hear, and I nodded a.s.sent.

"The disappearance of martins is a loss really of national importance," he began, in a sickly whine. "It is a shame to see how the pretty house martins are decreasing in this country at the hand of the sparrows," he continued. "He drives away our migratory and pre-eminently useful insect-eating birds, even turning out the eggs of the owners and using the locality for its own nest."

He was obviously quoting from the pro-martin authorities, and I stopped him.

"I have heard all that before," said I.

"There's a fair amount of it about, pages and pages," said he; "there's one story, for instance, of twenty or thirty martins blocking up the bold, bad sparrow inside the nest, which the said bold, bad sparrow had usurped.

What do you think of that?"

"I think it is untrue," I promptly replied.

"It _is_ untrue," said he; "but it isn't far away from truth, for all that. Many a dead sparrow has been found in a martin's-nest, and many a time the entrance was too small for a sparrow to have got out of; but, still, it wouldn't take a healthy sparrow long to break up a martin's-nest."

"What has happened then?" said I.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ONE PART OF WHITE a.r.s.eNIC TO FIFTEEN PARTS OF CORN-MEAL, IS THE USUAL RECIPE.]

"Why, of course, the sparrow was dying when it got in. One part of white a.r.s.enic to fifteen parts of corn-meal is the usual recipe. It is illegal, as you doubtless know, but it has the advantage of acting slowly. Of course, if we _saw_ a friend of ours writhing about in the feeding-ground, we should give that feeding-ground a wide berth."

"I see," said I; "but what about the entrance being plastered up?"

"It is never quite plastered up," said he; "and even if it was, a healthy, able-bodied sparrow could knock the whole thing to pieces with two pecks.

No; when there are any disputes as to proprietorship between sparrows and martins, the martins have a trick of waiting till the sparrow is out, and then narrowing down the entrance so that the sparrow will have a job to get in decent nest material. When a live sparrow is in possession, he very soon lets callers know it. The martins, in these cases, miss their usual greeting, and probably conclude that the sparrow is away, whereas he is really dead inside. That's just about the whole truth of the matter."

"But why on earth," I protested, "can't you build a proper nest for yourself?"

"I don't know why it is," said he, "but the mere thought of a martin makes a sparrow feel bad inside. Why does a dog naturally go for a cat? One thing is quite certain, however. We both fancy human dwellings, and, if we left the martins altogether alone, they would have all the best places in no time. Now, that wouldn't be fair at all. I appeal to you as a fellow Briton. We are British born and bred. We stay with you all the year round.

The martin only comes to look you up in the fine weather. Then he puts on his showy foreign manners, and you say, 'How charming! so different to those dirty, vulgar sparrows!' but, as soon as the weather breaks, off he goes. Now, a hard winter is no fun for the sparrows. We are glad of any shelter we can get, and the martins' deserted nests come in very handy.

Not only do we use them, but we keep them from falling to pieces, line them with feathers, and make them into snug winter quarters. Back comes the martin in the spring. 'Dear me!' he says, 'most gratifying, I am sure.

So kind of you to act as caretaker. Why, I declare, the old place looks better than when I left. Of course, you won't mind my coming in at once.

I've got to make my family arrangements for the season.' 'Not quite,' says the sparrow. 'If it hadn't been for me, this nest would have been down in the last gale. I've put money into this nest, and you can jolly well go and build another. You ought to have stayed to look after it, if you wanted it again.'"

"That is all very well," said I; "but it seems to me that there ought to be room for both of you."

"Well, there isn't," said he, "and Nature has worked it out that there shan't be, and if you write a thousand letters to the _Field_, you won't alter that."

"Suppose the martins got the pull over the sparrows, do you think it would be better for things in general?"

"You mean better for yourself," said the sparrow, sharply.

On reflection, I came to the conclusion that that was just what I did mean.

"I don't believe an increase of insect-eating birds would do you much good," he went on. "Suppose, for instance, the ichneumon flies were decimated, what a time it would be for the caterpillars! How would some of your plants get on if there weren't enough insects to fertilize them?"

I felt it was time to shift my ground. "Let us get back to your early history," said I. "What was the nest like?"

"It was in a hole of a tree-stump," said he. "A silly sort of place, I think, not ten feet from the ground. Now I always build as high as I can--just underneath the rooks'-nests, in fact. You're safe from boys; they don't shoot your nest to bits for fear of shooting the rooks'-nests too; and there's abundance of insect food on the spot. The nest itself was mostly feathery stuff, though I remember a piece of pink paper, which used to tickle me. I suppose the colour of it took the old birds' fancy. Of course the nest was distinct from the casing. That was the usual straw. I think it is the casing of sparrows'-nests that you humans object to as untidy."

"We chiefly object to the portion which stops up the water-pipes," said I.

"What did you have to eat?"

"Insects, I expect, to start with. At least, that is what I always give my youngsters; then, as my gizzard strengthened, small, hard seeds; then bigger ones; finally, corn itself. That is my favourite diet at the present time. Three parts of what I eat is corn, the rest is insects, seeds, and sc.r.a.ps."

[Ill.u.s.tration: IT WAS IN A HOLE OF A TREE-STUMP.]

"You can get corn all the year round?"

"Oh! easily enough. In the fields, when it is growing; round the wheat-stacks later, or among the poultry--people don't shoot into the middle of the poultry--anywhere, in fact."

"And you really like corn better than anything?"

"There is nothing quite so nice in the world," said the sparrow, "as fresh, young corn in the ear, which you can just squeeze the juice out of and then drop."

"And are you aware of the amount of damage which you do to the poor, struggling farmer?" said I, a.s.suming a judicial severity which I was far from feeling.

The flippancy was infectious.

"A recent estimate places it at 770,094 per annum," said the sparrow.

"Just think of that!"

"In this country alone," said I. "You seem to forget America, Australia, South Africa, and all the other places to which you have been unhappily introduced as an insecticide."

"You seem to forget," he retorted, "that it was you yourselves who made the introduction. You tried to improve on the natural balance which was ordained for this string of countries, and a pretty mess you have made of it. Now you want to crown your folly of introducing the sparrow where Nature said it was not wanted, by exterminating it where Nature says it is wanted--and that's here."

"I don't think any one has suggested that you should be exterminated,"

said I.

"'To lessen their numbers in our country, every possible means must be had recourse to.' There's a pretty piece of grammar for you."