As you will see by the enclosed, I am now working on the twenty-first thousand. I have only about fifty copies left, and Mr. Newman has sent out some of the twenty-second thousand, so I think that we are doing well. One of the largest amounts asked for lately has been 1,000 for the Lancashire County Council, and also a little while ago Lady Aberdeen wrote for a small supply from the Government House, Canada.
I hope you will be pleased to hear that I have brought our sparrow work under the notice of Mr. [now Sir Ernest] Clarke, Secretary, Royal Agricultural Society—I hope in a way to advance our work. I sent him a couple of the twenty-second thousand, with a sort of report letter, giving some points. Mr. Clarke has replied very courteously that he is much obliged for my interesting letter, which he will lay before the Society’s Zoological Committee. Also that, as he is occasionally asked for the leaflet, it might “save me (E. A. O.) unnecessary correspondence” if he were able to send copies to inquirers. I am delighted to follow up this suggestion—for practically it is the Royal Agricultural Society distributing for us, and thus giving their marked approval. I wonder what will come of the Zoological Committee’s consideration. As the President of the Society has such an exceedingly bad opinion of the sparrow, I hope we may get some good colleagueship. I am perpetually asked how to destroy sparrows, but I refer the inquirers to you. I am longing to hear when your book will come out—surely it will have a good circulation. I am well advanced now in the twenty-second thousand, and the information is well spread, for we have a splendid notice—much more than a column—in the “Madras Mail,” and I have had two applications from scientific U.S.A. centres.
I am still dispensing knowledge about the evil ways of _P. domesticus_ so steadily that I have had to order a sixth impression.
The store of letters grew to such a size that a week or two ago I sent them (excepting about seventy which were to some degree private) in a great parcel to Mr. Janson, and I have arranged with him that this great mass, perhaps of 1,500 or 1,600 letters, should be sorted out into those that are merely applications for leaflets and those which contain any information.