ENGLISH SPARROW 23 



in all poultry yards and pig pens, these germs could easily be picked 

 up and carried to other yards. It has been proven by H. E. Ewing 

 (1911) that it "frequently harbors and is the host of one of the worst, 

 if not the worst, of poultry pests, the chicken louse or chicken mite, 

 Dermanyssus gallinse Redi. * * * The English Sparrow likewise 

 harbors and is the host of perhaps the most important of all the ex- 

 ternal parasites of our native song birds, and likewise our tamed cage 

 birds, the bird mite, Dermanyssus avium De Geer." 



A sparrow that he picked up in a weak and sickly condition was 

 found to "possess scores, if not hundreds," of the chicken mites. A 

 recently deserted sparrow nest was found to be heavily infested; by 

 counting the number of mites on a moderately infested feather, he 

 esimated that there were some 18,000 chicken mites in the nest. 



By summing up the evidence regarding its food, its behavior, and the 

 damage that it does, it can be plainly seen that the English sparrow is 

 one of the worst avian pests ever introduced into this or any other 

 country. Barrows was probably not far wrong in estimating that the 

 evidence is 100 to 1 against it. 



Winter. — The English sparrow is not a migratory bird, except 

 that it may be driven by very severe weather to leave the northern 

 extremities of its range. Even in much of Canada it is a permanent 

 resident and able to stand ordinary winter weather, provided it can 

 find food and shelter, but when the temperature remains as much as 

 30 or 40 degrees below zero for a week or more at a time, they must 

 huddle together in buildings for protection and many may die for the 

 lack of food or succumb to the cold. 



Farther south there is much less winter mortality ; there they cluster 

 about barns and farmyards, find a ready food supply, often under 

 cover, and can roost at night inside the buildings. Except in the 

 severest weather, they find sufficient shelter in hedges, vines, brush 

 piles, or even huddled together in city trees. Formerly very abundant 

 in our cities all winter, they can no longer find sufficient food there; 

 but in rural districts they are our commonest winter birds, and we 

 must admit that, no matter how much we dislike them, they add a 

 little cheer to the bleak winter landscape. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — The English sparrow was introduced in North America, 

 and is now a permanent resident from central and northeastern British 

 Columbia, central-southern Mackenzie, northwestern and central 

 Saskatchewan (Emma Lake), northern Manitoba (Churchill), central- 

 western, central, and northeastern Ontario, southwestern and central- 

 southern Quebec (Blue Sea Lake, Anticosti Island), and Newfound- 



380928—57 3 



