ly 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 scraps."

[Illustration: 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," sai