64 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



they have made discoveries for the complete protection against or for 

 the complete annihilation of noxious insects. They simply jump at 

 conclusions, and think that one swallow makes a summer. I will only 

 give one instance, and it is to the point decisively: 



Several years ago the street and park-trees in the city of New York 

 were being disastrously defoliated by certain insects. Something must 

 be done at once or the trees would be lost. That great community was 

 at once relieved by some brilliant idiot publishing as an indisputable fact 

 that birds were the great natural enemy of worms ; therefore birds 

 must be had, and that the English sparrow was the most stalwart of 

 wormers, and that he was domestic in habit, and that he bred very fast 

 and was hardy and active. Here was a mixture of truth and fiction 

 very captivating to the New York heart; the source was considered good, 

 and all was taken for facts, and the English sparrow "boom" com- 

 menced. A {ew charitable idiots imported a few dozen sparrows, the 

 city a few dozens more, and New York was happy. The sparrow took 

 possession ; he had crossed the perilous "briny " to do it, and he did it; 

 he smote our no-account native birds with bill and claw; he brought his 

 bow and arrow with him, the self-same bow with which he had smote 

 poor innocent Cock Robin for his own good pleasure ages ago, and any 

 bird too large for him to conveniently handle he smote with his arrow. 

 The next season, having cleaned out his new ranch of all useless feathered 

 bipeds, of this hitherto unhappy country, the nest was built, eggs laid 

 and young hatched, which were carefully fed upon kitchen offal and 

 sweepings, choice selections from the droppings of animals, green peas, 

 some fruits and a few poor innocent tender harmless worms. After rear- 

 ing two or three numerous families, they all, fathers and sons, mothers 

 and daughters, uncles, aunts and cousins, went diligently to work, carefully 

 spreading the horse-droppings over the streets, helping mow the grass of 

 the parks, and beautifully frescoing and calcimining the fronts of the 

 houses, and the hats and bonnets of the citizens. But the great, horrid 

 worms disappeared from New York's trees. The sparrow did it and New 

 York was happy. The sparrow "boom" went on; Philadelphia heard 

 of it; her trees were wormy; she sent a policeman in citizen's dress to 

 New York, who stole a dozen sparrows, when, presto, her worms were 

 gone and she was happy. Baltimore, Washington, Boston, Cincinnati, 

 St. Louis, Chicago, all were struck. The sparrows were obtained ; and 

 they did not stop to look if the worms disappeared, it was not worth 

 while. Five hundred sparrows had devoured the worms on 600,000 trees 

 in New York city and Brooklyn, averaging three pounds of worms to the 

 tree in three months. Fact ; Mark Twain, Henry Ward Beecher and other 

 eminent divines had seen it and said it ; Prof. Thurber, P. T. Quinn 

 and other practical farmers of a national reputation, ditto ; Jay Gould, 

 Miss Anthony and others eminent in science gave the scientific details ; 

 a// the old ladies of Boston wrote long essays on Sparrowensis ; the illus- 

 trated papers gave most beautiful pictures of myriads of "those great, 

 horrid worms" passing through the sparrows. One speculative fellow 

 tried to start a company with a vast capital for collecting sparrow guano, 



