"But you must admit that both you and the rat are increasing in numbers, and, therefore, in destructiveness. What is to be the end of it?" "The end of it will be that you will preserve our enemies instead of shooting them at sight." "Meaning?" "Hawks, owls, weasels, and so on." "But hawks would never come near the towns?" "We aren't in town the whole year round. Even the cockneyest of sparrows has his month or two in the cornfields. I don't mind telling you that one of the reasons we have for clinging to human habitations is that we are thus sure of sanctuary. Our natural enemies will always be welcomed with a gun. They know that, too, and keep away. Make it an offence to kill a bird or beast of prey, and you will see a difference in the rats and sparrows." "What about the pheasants?" said I. "There would be fewer pheasants," said the sparrow; "and, if you only knew it, they would taste better, if there were." [Illustration: YOU HAVE BEEN SHOT AT.] "Sparrow," said I, "to speak disrespectfully of the battue places you at once outside the pale. You _are_ an Avian Rat. You _do_ consume an inordinate quantity of corn. Since history began you have been an impudent parasite on man. As a hieroglyphic character you signified the enemy. Choleric old gentlemen have been roused to frenzy over your misdeeds. You have been shot at, trapped, poisoned, netted. Like the chafers, you have been excommunicated. You have been made into a yearly tribute, by the thousand. Laws have been enacted to compass your destruction, letters have been written to the _Field_, and yet--and yet--an inscrutable Providence has decreed that you shall survive, increase, and multiply. What _good_ do you do?" [Illustration: TRAPPED.] "Have you ever heard me sing?" said the sparrow. "Sing!" I cried; "that sempiternal twitter, that intolerable chirrup that destroys the best and latest hours of sleep! Do you call that singing?" "What bird would you prefer?" he blandly inquired. I considered for a moment. The grim possibility of ten thousand nightingales yodelling in chorus, of ten thousand skylarks, or of ten thousand cuckoos, determined my answer. "I cannot think of one," said I. "But this is no merit on your part, it is merely a qualification of evil." [Illustration: NETTED.] "I thought you would acknowledge _that_," said the sparrow. "But, seriously, you ask me what good I do, and I will tell you. That my infant food consisted entirely of insects and caterpillars you already know. Turn the statistician to work who has so cunningly reduced my corn-depredations to pounds, shillings, and pence, and he will assuredly find that the insects devoured by the infant sparrow population in a year will amount to hundreds of millions. These, mind you, are insects large enough to be brought to us in our parent's beaks. [Illustration: AVIAN RAT, INDEED! RATHER AVIAN SCAVENGER!]