896 SPARROW 



rocky situations, and one, A. coUaris or alpinus, is a denizen of 

 the higher mountain-ranges of Europe, though it has several times 

 strayed to England. The taxonomic position of the genus is 

 regarded by some systematists as uncertain ; but there seems no 

 good reason for removing it from the group which contains the 

 Thrushes and Warblers {Turdidx and Sylviidx), to which it was 

 long referred without doubt. 



2. The House-Sparrow, the Fringilla domestica of Linnaeus and 

 Passer domesticus of modern authors, is far too well known to need 



any descrijition of its appearance or habits, 

 being found, whether in country or town, more 

 attached to human dwellings than any other 

 wild bird ; nay, more than that, one may safely 

 assert that it is not known to thrive anywhere 

 far away from the habitations or works of 

 House-Sparrov.-. - n^en, extending its range in such countries as 

 (After swainsou.) Northern Scandinavia and many parts of the 

 Russian empire as new settlements are formed and land brought 

 under cultivation. Thus questions arise as to whether it should not 

 be considered a parasite throughout the greater portion of the area 

 it now occupies, and as to what may have been its native country. 

 Moreover, of late years it has been inconsiderately introduced to 

 several of the large towns of North America ^ and to many of the 

 British colonies, in nearly all of which, as had been foreseen by orni- 

 thologists, it has multiplied to excess and has become an intolei'able 

 nuisance, being unrestrained by the natural checks which partly 

 restrict its increase in Europe and Asia. Whether indeed in the older 

 seats of civilization the House-Sparrow is not decidedly injurious to 

 the agriculturist and horticulturist has long been a matter of discus- 

 sion, and no definite result that a fair judge can accept has yet been 

 reached. It is freely admitted that the damage done to growing crops 

 is often enormous, but as yet the service frequently rendered by the 

 destruction of insect-pests cannot be calculated. Both friends and 

 foes of the House -Sparrow write as violent partisans,- and the 



1 The oiiiithologists of the United States liad timely •warning from their 

 English brethren to beware of this si^ecies, but some of them persisted in allowing 

 or even advocating its introduction — the main object of which was alleged to be 

 the destruction of " measuring worms" — the common name aiiplied to the larvae 

 of certain of the Gcometridse, and the bird's arrival was hailed in an ode by so dis- 

 tinguished a poet as Bryant. Having found their new colonist a failm-e, it seems 

 too bad of them to distinguisli it emphatically as the "English" Sparrow, for 

 we, in this country, know what feeling that epithet expresses among the less- 

 educated class of citizens of the great Republic ; and, as hinted in the text, 

 the House -Sjiarrow is in all likelihood not indigenous to England. On its 

 introduction to America Messrs. Baird, Brewer and Ridgway gave it its correct 

 designation. 



- Some of the more recent attacks upon it are contained in several issues of 



