ENGLISH SPARROW 15 



the vegetable food, 7 percent consisted of grass seed, largely of plants 

 of the genera Zizania (wild rice), Panicum, and Chaetocloa, and 

 notably crab-grass and pigeon-grass, and 17 percent of various weeds 

 not belonging to the grass family. The grass and weed seeds taken 

 are not noticeably different from those usually eaten by native spar- 

 rows. But what especially differentiates the vegetable food from that 

 of all other sparrows is the large proportion of grain consumed, which 

 formed 74 per cent of the entire food of the year and 90 percent of 

 that of the period from June to August." 



In late summer, when the numbers of these sparrows are augmented 

 by the addition of two or three broods of young, the sparrows swoop 

 down on the grain fields to raid the standing crops; they alight on 

 the stalks to pluck the grain from the fruiting heads or to shake the 

 kernels down to the ground to be picked up at their leisure, all of 

 which results in heavy damage to the crops. 



Among the few redeeming features in the food of English sparrows 

 is the small percentage of harmful and annoying insects that it eats. 

 Hervey Brackbill writes in his notes: "During one October when 

 aphids heavily infested the silver and Norway maples that line 

 several blocks in northwest Baltimore, English sparrows were among 

 the most persistent of 13 species of birds that fed upon them. The 

 sparrows appeared daily, foraged throughout the 35- to 50-foot trees, 

 and used many different methods. In a heavy vertical fork, a type 

 of place in which the aphids sometimes collected in particular num- 

 bers, one bird once clung for some seconds head downward, much 

 like a nuthatch, while snatching up the insects on all sides. Another 

 clung to a silver maple trunk practically like a woodpecker and 

 foraged over and beneath the flaky bark. The English sparrows also 

 often picked the aphids off the under sides of leaves. The English 

 sparrow is one of the heaviest bird feeders on the Japanese beetle, 

 which has become such a pest in parts of the East. It is the most 

 versatile bird in its hunting of them, too. It flies to commanding 

 perches on rose bushes and trellises, scans the leaves and flowers 

 thoroughly, and upon locating a beetle makes its capture with a 

 swoop. It searches the bushes from below, hopping along the flower 

 beds, peering intently and then darting upward to seize its prey. I 

 have seen it make catches as high as 18 feet up in trees. It also 

 pursues low-flying beetles through the air and captures them on 

 the wing." 



I can remember that many years ago, before the sparrows became 

 abundant, we were greatly annoyed by inch worms spinning down 

 upon us from the trees which they had partially defoliated. Then 

 the sparrows came and began foraging in our shade trees for these 

 little caterpillars or canker worms, as well as for the elm-leaf beetles. 



