Many persons are inclined to regard Sparrows as mischievous creatures, without considering the immense services they render by devouring innumerable noxious insects. Frederick the Great of Prussia, we are told, was so prejudiced against these birds that he issued a decree that they should be shot whenever they appeared, and set a price upon their heads. The poor Sparrows were immediately pursued in all directions, and some thousands of dollars expended in the course of a few days by the State as payment for their destruction. The natural result of this barbarism followed; the trees that had been supposed to be injured by the birds were so covered with caterpillars and other insects, as to be not only barren of fruit, but also quite denuded of their leaves, so that the King was at once obliged to recall his decree, and had to command that Sparrows should be brought from all parts in order to repair the mischief that he had done. These birds have been introduced into Australia in the hope of their being similarly useful. Their flesh is often eaten, and in Italy small towers are built, in the compartments of which they make their nests; from these the young are taken as soon as fledged, and are considered great dainties when spitted on a stick and roasted. In old Gesner's time they were applied to a very different purpose: two spoonfuls of burnt Sparrow was supposed to be a cure for avarice, and the flesh of the nestlings, when applied with a little vinegar, was considered an excellent remedy for toothache. According to Pliny, their brains were extensively employed in medicine.