6 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



horse, as a tractive force, has almost reached the vanishing point. 

 The motor vehicle has driven the English sparrow out of our cities not 

 only by removing its principal, almost its only, food supply, but by 

 making its street life so hazardous among the swiftly moving vehicles 

 as to cause it to seek safer surroundings, where food is more easily 

 obtained. Studies of stomach contents show that no very large pro- 

 portion of the food of this bird consists of semidigested oats, from 

 which it may be contended that the passing of the horse was not a 

 primary factor in the decline of the sparrow; nevertheless the passing 

 of the horse certainly resulted in driving the great concentrations of 

 sparrows out of our large cities. 



Courtship. — The courtship of the English sparrow is more spec- 

 tacular and strenuous than elegant. It used to be a common ex- 

 perience to see a group of these dirty, soot-begrimed street gamins 

 struggling and fighting almost under our feet in our streets and gutters, 

 oblivious to their surroundings. Charles W. Townsend (1909) thus 

 describes the actions of the ardent male: 



With flattened back, head held up and tail down [up?], wings out from the body, 

 the tips of the primaries touching or nearly touching the ground, he hops back 

 and forth before the coy female as if on springs. Not one but several dance 

 thus before a lady who barely deigns to look at them, and then only to peck in 

 feigned disgust at the love-lorn suitors. These pecks are often far from love pats. 

 At times she stands in the middle of a ring of males at whom she pecks viciously 

 in turn as they fly by, all chirping excitedly at the top of their lungs. The casual 

 observer might think the lady was being tormented by a crowd of ungallant males, 

 but the opposite is in reality the case for the lady is well pleased and is showing 

 her pretended feminine contempt for the male sex, who on their part are trying 

 their best to attract and charm her. At other times she plants her bill firmly 

 on the head of the suitor, and pecks at him violently from time to time without 

 letting go her hold. I have seen several such one-sided fights, for the oppressed 

 rarely fights back, where the male seemed to be on the verge of exhaustion, lying 

 panting on the ground, but on being disturbed both birds flew off apparently none 

 the worse. * * * About a year ago I w r atched two males in fierce encounter 

 on a small grass plot in front of my house. One had the other by the bill and held 

 him back downwards on the grass. They were both using their claws vigorously 

 and bracing with their wings. Occasionally they would roll over, or go head over 

 heels. Breaking apart they would fly up at each other like enraged barn-yard 

 cocks. Although I stood within two feet of them, so intent were they that they 

 did not notice me until I made an incautious movement and they fled to fight 

 elsewhere. 



A disgraceful fight between two female English Sparrows occurred in front of 

 my house one April day. Catching each other by the bills they pulled and tugged 

 and rolled over on the grass. When they broke away the fight was renewed a 

 few inches above the ground in fighting cock style. Three males appeared, and 

 watched the fight. One, evidently scandalized, endeavored to separate the 

 Amazons by pecking at them, but they paid no attention to him and only after 

 some time flew away, one chasing the other. 



