Mounting the leafless thorn-hedge twig by twig, flipping restless wings and piping continuously, are a pair of dunnocks, stirred to nuptial activity by the rise in temperature, for love-making in many species begins in autumn. Miss EL Turner, in the first of her three Saturday afternoon lectures at the Manchester Museum, spoke very emphatically about the damage done to useful birds by panic legislation against the sparrow. She particularly mentioned the destruction of the hedge-sparrow by children, who killed it and robbed its nest to obtain the reward offered for sparrows.
The crusade against the sparrow was not seriously organised in this district, but another factor saved the useful little insect-eater from persecution, for here in the North the name hedge-sparrow is but little used. The schoolboy knows the dunnock, or blue dunnock, but not the hedge-sparrow. I believe also that we have, at any rate, in the neighbourhood of Manchester, an intelligent body of elementary school teachers who point out, perhaps more clearly than in more rural districts, the differences between birds which merit protection and those which are a menace to crops. At any rate, our useful and fussy little dunnock has not noticeably decreased in South Lancashire and Cheshire.
