Sir. — Kindly allow me to ask the friends of the sparrow what that very useful little bird is about just now, because 1 notice that for one cricket) there was four years ago there are at> least a thousand now ; the large locust, too, has appeared again for the first time for many years, and the grass- killing grab (I don't know its proper name) la also very numerous tbls year, and yet the lively sparrow Is far from having diminished in numbers. It is very strange, and quite contrary to the usual habit of the passer domesticus, bnt you may walk for miles over hills and never come across one, bat go any where near a grain stack and they rise up in olonds. Is that because there are more Insects there just now than anywhere else?— lam, &c, TUARAWARUHIA, May Ist, 1893.
A REPLY TO " MERCY."

Sib, — I believe the writer of a letter signed "Mercy" In last Thursday's issue to be a man, albeit bis assertion re men and young girls galloping over the Rua taniwha plains after dogs "in order to see them catch and tear to pieces a harm less bare and delighting iv her distressing cries" is not only unmanly, but nntrubh , iul and Impertinent, His desire to impose on a minlßter of religion a silly task that , he is more fitted to take upon himself is only equal in cowardice to his shielding himself nnder a rum dt plume.— l am, ' &0,, Alfred H. Peiob. BaataDiwha, May 1, 1893.
INTER-CLUB FOOTBALL MATCHES.
