The following lines, addressed to the English Ortolan, or Wheatear, by Mrs. Charlotte Smith, allude to the foolish timidity of that bird:
“To take you, shepherd boys prepare
The hollow turf, the wiry snare,
Of those weak terrors well aware,
That bid you vainly dread
The shadows floating over downs,
Or murmuring gale, that round the stones
Of some old beacon, as it moans,
Scarce moves a thistle’s head.
And if a cloud obscure the sun,
With faint and fluttering heart you run
Into the pitfall you should shun,
And only leave when dead.”
THE SPARROW. (Passer domesticus.)
This bird is, next to the robin redbreast, the boldest of the small feathered tribe which frequent our barns and houses: he is a courageous little creature, and fights undauntedly against birds ten times bigger than himself. Sparrows are accused of destroying a great quantity of corn, and in several counties the landlord or farmer puts a price on a Sparrow’s head; but the farmer is the person most injured by the plan, as the good Sparrows, in ridding land of caterpillars, more than compensate for the loss of grain they destroy. Mr. Bradley, in his Treatise on Husbandry and Gardening, shows, by a calculation, that a pair of Sparrows, during the time they have their young ones to feed, destroy on an average, every week, three thousand three hundred and sixty caterpillars.