Shall We Kill Him? 



By F. H. Rowley 



( )iK'c more the sparrow, tnir ever present, dusty, hard-working httle passer 

 duittcsticits. is before the court on trial for his hfe. .Now, the complainant is the 

 League of American Sportsmen, which is planning to enlist the activities of 

 colleges, schools. Boy Scouts, police and fire departments, and all other forces it 

 may be able to command in one determined attack upon him. Nothing less than 

 his extermination among us is the end sought. 



Before w-e all respond to the heroic call of our friends the sportsmen, and set 

 out with gun and trap, and fire and water and poison against this tiny criminal, 

 there are one or two things that are well worth considering. Will an enlightened, 

 educated public opinion sustain a movement that sets young boys killing birds by 

 every possible means that may be devised, even when the birds are sparrows? 

 ■Must not the character of a child ine\itably suffer from the practice of killing? 

 Must it not, this crusade of destruction, blunt his finer sensibilities, lessen his 

 regard for life in all its humbler forms and foster in him the spirit of indifference 

 toward suffering? There is but one answer to these questions. Experience has 

 demonstrated that argument here is excluded. I'rom parents and teachers and 

 editors everywhere there should arise a prompt and positive protest against enroll- 

 ing the children of the land in any such campaign as has for its object the killing 

 of birds, no matter what the birds are. The bird life of this country is too vitally 

 related to its very existence to run any risk of training the youth in the jirocess 

 of exterminating even an injurious species, should such an one exist. In addition 

 it should be said that there are sparrows, other than the English sparrow, which 

 resemble him sufficiently to make probable the killing of many a bird against which 

 no charge has ever been brought. No, if the sparrow is all his enemies say he is, 

 and if he must be destroyed, then let us entrust his destruction to men designated 

 to the task and not to children. 



There is still something more to be said. \\'e know the Department of Agri- 

 culture has advocated the trapping, poisoning and shooting of the English sparrow. 

 But even that distinguished body does not know everything, has much still to 

 learn. It has had to change its views many times upon many questions. What 

 are we to do with such facts as these : 



Recent investigations carried on by the Biological Survey led to the state- 

 ment made by that authority, that during the years 1911 and 1012 it was estimated 

 that one brood of young sparrows destroyed at least 2,000 alfalfa weevil in a day. 



Brof. R. J. DeLoach, of the Georgia Agricultural Experiment Station, says 

 he witnessed the spectacle of about 1,000 sjiarrows attacking a field of German 

 millet which had been invaded by several million of the army-worm caterpillars. 

 In approximately forty-eight hours the field had been completely cleaned of the 

 worms. 



James Buckland. of London, in a paper ])ublished in the Smithsonian Report 

 for 1913, says: "Some years ago the agriculturists of Hungary, moved to the 



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