428 THE HOUSE SPARROW. 



seriously interfered Avith by it, and the writer has frequently seen 

 the martin dispossessed, after a desperate resistance, of the premises 

 provided for it by farmers, and ultimately driven away entirely by 

 the sparrow, from its home and neighborhood. 



Referring to the advent of the English sparrow, the Kansas City 

 Journal quoted some time ago from the Topeka Journal as having 

 " an account of the first English sparrows brought to Kansas. In 

 1864, F. W. Giles conceived the idea of importing some of these birds. 

 He ship]3ed in all 28 of them. They were confined in cages at his 

 place in Topeka until all but 5 had died. At last the 5 were turned 

 loose to take their chances of life or death, though Giles had no hope 

 that they would live. They fooled him. They took up their home 

 in the neighborhood. The following autumn there were 12 birds. 

 The second season found 00, and the third summer about 3,000. Then 

 they increased so fast that no account could be kept, and in the 

 twenty-five years which followed they spread all over the West.'" 



