and fighting in the early morning heard about the bedroom windows where 

 late risers are taking their "beauty sleeps." 



Resentment against the bird is reflected in the laws of our country, for in 

 no state in the Union is the English Sparrow protected by statute. Every little 

 while there are discussions in the public press about starting "Sparrow-wars" with 

 a view to exterminating these birds. Now and then we hear of some community's 

 eflforts looking to this end. Such attempts, however, have virtually been futile, as, 

 the English Sparrow can take care of itself so successfully that only by continuous 

 warfare against them, year after year, can their numbers be kept down in any 

 particular community. 



Sometimes the experiment is made of offering a bounty on the heads of Spar- 

 rows. One objection to this procedure is that inexperienced persons, who are not 

 able to distinguish between the English Sparrow and one or another of our native 

 Sparrows, immediately become active in such a campaign, and our native birds 

 suffer as a result. Within the past month an agent of this Association visited a 

 western town where a bounty was being paid on dead English Sparrows. This 

 agent examined the dead birds brought in during three days, and found that only 

 one out of every eleven birds brought in, on all of which the bounty appears to 

 have been paid, were English Sparrows ; the others were all useful native birds. 



"What shall we do with the English Sparrow?" is a question which this 

 AssQcia-tion is probably asked once a day on an average throughout the year. I 

 confeis my inability to answer this question. The Department of Agriculture at 

 Washington has attempted to answer it by issuing bulletins advising people to 

 poison 'and trap the birds. Whether this course is wise, it may at least be said 

 that all such attempts in a public way instantly produce strong opposition by many 

 hundreds of men and women who, perhaps in lieu of more interesting bird-neigh- 

 bors, regard with pleasure the presence of the English Sparrows, and often feed 

 them upon their window-sills, or provide boxes for their accommodation. 



864 



