On the other hand, when mice have got the upper hand in house and barn, devouring and spoiling man’s provision, then every species of owl is welcome, even he the superstitious countryman calls the Death-bird. And, again, when the weather favours that pest the field-mouse, and the voles, and they swarm in meadows, cornlands and everywhere, so that the land is full of mouse-runs; from all sides comes that gentle singing from tiny throats and the farmer is at his wits’ end to know how to be rid of the plague. Then in Hungary the mouse buzzards circle by day over the pastures and fields, making war on the gnawing little beasts; and the whole night long the owls take up the same useful work. They fill their crops, each of them, with from twenty to thirty mice, fly to their several trees to digest the meal, and you will find the pellets formed by the birds of the indigestible portions--bones and fur--in and about their nesting-holes. Harmful moths and beetles they also kill. And so the Owls--barn, the tawny or wood-owl, the long and the short-eared--which in England are the only common species, are undoubtedly the agriculturalists’ good friends, and indeed friends of the whole human race; and many landowners now prohibit the use of the cruel pole-trap in their destruction. Richard Jefferies tells how 200 owls were taken in one pole-trap in a plantation of young fir in his time. Dr. Altum, a great mover in the cause of bird-protection, examined 210 of the wood-owl’s pellets and found in these the remains of 6 rats, 42 mice, 296 voles, 33 shrews, 48 moles, 18 birds and 48 beetles, besides a countless number of cockchafers. And what can you find to say in favour of the Sparrow? I fancy I hear many a reader ask,--that ubiquitous bird whose impudence is everywhere proverbial. When sparrows in hosts settle down on the corn waiting to be harvested, not only filling their crops but uselessly beating the grain out of the ears, the case is bad, and it is hard then to recall all the good the same birds had done in devouring the seeds of harmful weeds, such as wild mustard, etc.--also to think of the cockchafers in the grub as well as winged--daddy-longlegs, caterpillars, turnip-moth, grubs of cabbage-moth and butterfly, and the moths of both currant and gooseberry. In towns, too, the sparrow is invaluable as a street scavenger. House-flies, those plagues indoors, maggots of fleas, eggs of cockroaches, spiders, centipedes,--all, and many other “small deer” that infest stables, poultry-yards and other precincts of our homesteads the sparrow diligently seeks for.