66 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



parts of Watertown, Belmont, Waltham and other neighboring towns, and in the 

 course of the next six or eight years they spread over the greater part of the 

 territory which they now occupy in the Cambridge Region, taking possession 

 first of the town centers, next of the cultixated grounds about suburban dwell- 

 ings, and finally of such outlying farms and orchards as they found suited 

 to their tastes. For some time they shunned all densely wooded and most 

 sparsely populated localities, but they had made themselves thoroughly at home 

 in the country lying immediately to the westward of Mount Auburn before its 

 orchards, woods and fields had begun to give place to settlements of houses. 



The introduction of the House Sparrow into America called forth a storm 

 of protest and warning from several of our leading ornithologists to whom it was 

 knowTi that in parts of the Old World where the bird abounded its presence was 

 generally regarded — and for good and sufficient reasons — as a curse rather 

 than a blessing. Nor had the Sparrow been long in this country before our 

 newspapers and other serial publications began to teem with accounts of its rav- 

 ages on fruit and grain, and of its murderous assaults on certain of the native 

 birds, while even its usefulness as a destroyer of noxious insects came to be 

 seriously questioned. Its friends and supporters, by no means few in num- 

 ber, rushed to the rescue with counter statements and evidence, coupled with 

 impassioned appeals to humane sentiment, and the pros and cons of the ques- 

 tion were argued at such length and with so much personal feeling that the 

 controversy came to be termed the ' sparrow war.' Some of the charges 

 brought against the bird at this time may have been without foundation, and 

 others, unquestionably, were grossly exaggerated, but that most of them were 

 at least based on fact is only too evident at the present day. It is probable, 

 however, that only those of us who personally remember the conditions which 

 existed before the Sparrows came, and who actually witnessed the changes that 

 accompanied their increase and general dispersion, can realize to the full the 

 disastrous and far-reaching effects which their introduction has had on our 

 native bird population. 



When the House Sparrow began to invade Cambridge, the native bird fauna 

 of this city was rich and varied for so large and populous a place. As the alien 

 hordes multiplied and spread, several of the indigenous species which, up to 

 that time, had bred numerously throughout the entire city, retired first from its 

 central portions and finally beyond its suburbs. The Bluebirds, House Wrens 

 and Tree Swallows v/ere the first to go, and the Eave Swallows soon followed 

 them. So quickly and completely were these four species banished that they 

 had nearly or quite ceased to breed anywhere in the thickly settled parts of 

 Cambridge within ten years from the first appearance of the House Sparrows. 

 The Purple Finches, Song Sparrows, Indigo-birds and Least Flycatchers disap- 



