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upon baked potatoes. The most rudimentary
acquaintance with the subject would have taught
them that there are insectivorous birds and
gram-nivorous birds, and that the latter are at once
distinguishable by the hard, thick bill, of which
the sparrow’s is a good example.
Even a cockney of the most antiquated
Bow-bells type, had he used his observing faculties,
might have asked where the multitude of sparrows
whose habitat is a London cabstand find their
caterpillars or any other creeping food ?
Even among the insectivorous birds there are
very few that will eat a caterpillar of any kind,
and none at all that will eat a hairy caterpillar.
We all know how eagerly domestic fowls devour
earth worms. If any of my readers are astonished
at the assertion I have put in italics, let them offer
a hairy caterpillar to a cock or a hen, or put one
in an aviary containing various birds, and watch
the result. Even the smooth green caterpillars,
although not protected by an acrid secretion or
repulsive integument, are evidently insipid, appear
to have no more flavour than the leaves upon
which they feed, and to contain mere chlorophvll
juices in lieu of blood; for domestic fowls and
insectivorous birds only eat these when hard pressed
for food.
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