100 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jail., 



will come on to the pear trees and pick out the blossom buds 

 in the spring, when they are swelling. I have watched them 

 at a distance of twenty-five feet, using a glass, so that I could 

 see them very distinctly. I know that they destroy great 

 numbers of the blossom buds on the pear trees, and I feel 

 very sure they do the like upon other fruit trees. They also 

 have become so domesticated that they change their habits 

 under different circumstances, to a great extent. They will 

 go into grain fields and pick the grain out of the heads. 

 They seem to become educated to doing that which will do 

 the most damage in every community where they are. 



Dr. RiGGS. Near my office in Hartford is a tall elm. The 

 sparrows come on to that tree in the winter time in flocks, 

 and denude the branches that have grown the previous sea- 

 son, in the spring, and during the summer. They will take 

 every bud off of those tender shoots that have grown, so that 

 in the spring of the next year, the buds are not there, and of 

 course those shoots do not leaf out, and they have to wait 

 until new buds are formed, about mid-summer, before any 

 '^leaves appear. In England and Ireland, as I learned a year 

 ago, they hire men and boys to go around their grain fields 

 at certain seasons of the year, and fire muskets or guns to 

 scare them off, or else they would lose their whole crop. 

 They destroy whole crops of barley in those countries. They 

 are very pugnacious birds, and drive away even the blue bird 

 and martin, and nearly every other bird that may come 

 around the premises, — even robins, which are very pugnacious. 



There have been very few robins in Hartford this season. 

 The people there feed the sparrows in winter, and while they 

 are feeding spring a net over them, and make a very passable 

 pot-pie of them. That is considered a legitimate business 

 now ; no one objects to it. 



In regard to crows, they have no crop like a great many 

 carnivorous birds. The passage leading from the mouth goes 

 directly to the gizzard, something like the duck. The duck 

 has no crop, yet the passage leading from the mouth to the 

 gizzard in the duck becomes considerable enlarged ; but in 



