482 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 



Turning now to the question of hog cholera, that modern scourge which 

 has caused losses of millions of dollars to American farmers, we find the 

 evidence less direct but almost equally convincing. Single cases, and even 

 some extensive outbreaks of hog cholera have Ijeen traced to the transfer 

 of the germs from farm to farm on the boots of the laborer or the common 

 farm vehicles and stable implements. The manure and mud of an infected 

 hog pen must contain the germs of the disease. What more likely, more 

 inevitable, more certain, than that Sparrows feeding on and in that mud 

 should carry some of it away on bill and feet and so infect other hog yards, 

 perhaps miles away? We do not know that the germs of hog cholera 

 have ever been demonstrated from the mud on Sparrows' feet, but we do 

 know of more than one outbreak of the dreaded disease, from which all 

 ordinary modes of infection were apparently excluded, but where English • 

 Sparrows were known to have passed freely in and out of the yards, and 

 might easily have brought the infection from farms less than a mile away. 

 We have no wish to condemn the Sparrow on mere suspicion, yet the known 

 and proved evils which attend his presence are so real and serious, and the 

 benefits claimed (very few of which have been proved) are so meager and 

 insignificant, that it seems the part of common prudence for everyone 

 interested in agricultural welfare and the beauty of country life to do all 

 that can be done legitimately to exterminate this bird. 



The English Sparrow when once fairly established increases with 

 phenomenal rapidity. Two broods at least are reared in a season, and 

 usually three, while instances of four or five broods have been reported 

 by competent observers. Moreover, the young seldom number less than 

 four in a brood and the old birds are remarkably successful in getting 

 them safely on the wing, so that in favorable seasons an immense number 

 of Sparrows may be reared in a comparatively small area. Without 

 quoting the sensational figures which are sometimes introduced we may 

 say that a dozen pairs in a city will produce hundreds of thousands in the 

 course of three or four years, and in making plans to exterminate Sparrows 

 this remarkable fecundity must be reckoned with. The dangerous character 

 of the Sparrow has been recognized generally throughout the country for 

 nearly thirty years, and various suggestions for restriction and extermina- 

 tion have been made, but the hopelessness of the attempt to entirely 

 exterminate is now almost universally conceded. Several of the states 

 early resorted to bounties, not only without good results, but with dis- 

 astrous effect upon our native birds. In 1887 Michigan enacted a bounty 

 law allowing one cent apiece for Sparrows in lots of not less than twenty- 

 five. At a subsequent session of the legislature this act was amended 

 so that the bounty was increased to two cents apiece and the birds might 

 be presented in lots of ten or more. Some of the defects of the earlier 

 bounty laws were also corrected and the law remained on the books until 

 repealed in the spring of 1901. The legislature of 1905, however, reenacted 

 practically the same bounty law, with the proviso, however, that it should 

 take effect only in such counties as saw fit to adopt it by a majority vote 

 of the Board of Supervisors. Very few of the counties appear to have 

 made the act effective, in fact, up to the present time we know of but three 

 counties in which such bounties are paid. 



We have not space to go into the merits of bounty laws in general. It 

 is suflficient to say that except under very unusual conditions they serve 

 no useful purpose, but result in only a slight reduction of the numbers of 

 the animals attacked, while they invariably produce more or less corrup- 



