22 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



young. But any of these methods, to be successful, must be followed 

 up persistently. Several important papers on this subject have been 

 published by the U. S. Department of Agriculture. The latest and 

 perhaps the best of these is by E. R. Kalmbach, "English Sparrow 

 Control" (U. S. Dep. Agric, leaflet 61, 1930). 



In spite of its many enemies, however, this sparrow is probably a 

 fairly longlived bird; Stoner (1942) tells of one in captivity that lived 

 to be 12 years old. 



Economic status. — A study of what has been written above on 

 the food and the behavior of the English sparrow will throw much light 

 on this subject. Almost everyone who has written anything about the 

 bird has had something to say about its faults and virtues, with a 

 decided emphasis on the former. Barrows (1889) received 1,048 

 original reports on the relation of this sparrow to other birds, of which 

 168 were favorable to the sparrow, 837 unfavorable, and 43 inde- 

 terminate. He gives a list of 70 kinds of wild birds that are known to 

 be molested in one way or another by English sparrows. And he 

 remarks: "For our own part, after careful consideration of each bit of 

 testimony presented, we believe that the proportion of one hundred to 

 one against the Sparrow is the most favorable estimate which any 

 unprejudiced person is likely to make." 



About all that can be said in favor of the sparrow's food habits is 

 that it destroys a few noxious insects and weed seeds; only 2.67 percent 

 of the food of adults consists of harmful insects, to which should be 

 added 0.64 percent of neutral insects and a few (0.08 percent) that are 

 beneficial. Among harmful insects destroyed, in addition to those 

 mentioned in its food (pp. 13-16), we should include the cotton boll 

 weevil, the San Jose scale, other scale insects, and the caterpillars that 

 attack cotton and tobacco plants. 



On the other side of the ledger we may charge up against the sparrow 

 the great damage it does to our agricultural interests. Dr. B. H. 

 Warren (1890) expresses this very well by saying: "In the spring it 

 feeds largely on the fruit buds of trees, bushes and vines, chief among 

 which may be mentioned pear, apple, peach, plum, cherry, currant and 

 grape. Different garden products, such as lettuce, beans, peas, cab- 

 bage, berries, pears, apples and grapes are greedily fed upon. The 

 Sparrow greatly damages the corn crop, tearing open the husks, 

 devouring the tender part of the ear and exposing the remainder to the 

 ravages of insects and to atmospheric changes. It alights on fields of 

 wheat, oats and barley, consuming a large quantity, and, by swaying 

 to and fro on the slender stalks and flapping its wings, showers the 

 remainder on the ground." 



The sparrow is also accused of spreading the germs of blackhead, 

 so fatal to turkeys, and the germs of hog cholera; as it feeds regularly 



