This terrible nuisance to the fruit raiser and seed-grower is, like Satan, not without an occasional good quality. Prof. Ward thus tells of a slight advance in its moral character :

"One small piece of good work the sparrow did do last summer and that was, to practically extermintate the seventeen year locusts which appeared in the parks in the city of Washington. The London sparrows are reputed to read the newspapers, and this ability has probably been inherited by their descendants. Certain it is that immediately after the published declaration of Prof. Riley that Cicadas were edible the best energies of the sparrows were devoted to their destruction. Forsaking the streets they hung about the parks from morning to night snapping up the luckless Cicadas as fast as they appeared. So great was the destruction that the edges of the walks were bright with a sparkling border of Cicada wings and scarcely an insect was left to propagate the race".

The English sparrow, its habits, and general history since it came to this country, is being investigated by the Department of Agriculture, and it would gladly send blanks to be filled to any applicant.

Food Of The English Sparrow

"B.," Wil-liamsport, Pa.: The English sparrow is properly a graminivorous bird. But it has a warm place for moths and beetles, and in so far it is an aid in keeping down these pests of the cultivator. Whether it is a greater friend than an enemy of the farmer and fruit-grower, is a good one for a debating society, because it can never be definitely answered. The citizen who has had his trees cleared of the measuring worm, or his elms of the leaf beetle, will speak by the hour loudly in their praise; while the lungs of the poor fellow who has lost all his crop of some desirable seeds, or perhaps his little strawberry crop by them, will be exercised with equal strength in crying them down.