8ei)t. 1888.] 



AKD OOLOGIST. 



135 



suiniiiL'r, although occasioiiallj' seen, but in 

 winter are rather eouHiioii, anil I can say from 

 observation that tlieir food seems to be, prin- 

 cipally, Knu;lisli Siiarrows." 



'J'liat is, tlieir food, in wintfi; seems to be, 

 principally, Englisli ^iparrows. By tliis I do 

 not mean tliat tlieir food, all the year, is Eng- 

 lish Sparrows, but only as far as my observa- 

 tions go in winter. It would certainly be com- 

 mitting a falsehood to say tiiat their food, in 

 summer, is Knglish Sparrows, when 1 have no 

 clianco to observe them and salisty myself as 

 to tlieir summer food. I h.ive no record of see- 

 ing more than two or three of them in summer 

 all tliroiigli the tive ov six years that 1 colleclcd 

 at Phoenix. 



Tlie winter in Oswego Ciimily is severe 

 enough to drive all the bugs and worms out of 

 sight and no doubt the Sliiikes were driven to 

 eating Kiiglisli Sparrows by hunger, but they 

 did it, nevertlieless. No dimbt in a, vicinity 

 wliere there are bugs and woiins in sullicicnt 

 quaiililii'S the Shrikes would choose and eat 

 them in iireferenee to Sparrows. 



Th(^ only otlier collector near I'lioeni-X, N. Y. 

 who can bear me out in my assertions, is Mr. 

 Beiij. V. Hess, who, in Vol. 12, pp. lU, writes 

 of shooting a SliriUe while in tlie act of pursu- 

 ing a phoebe (pewee) through bushes, and he 

 also spi^aks of their destroying Sparrows. I 

 will ask iMr. Hess to give his later observations 

 to the readers of the (). it. O. 



English Sparrow. 



1!V B I.N.I. 1'. III'.SS. 



For a few years back, since this bird has be- 

 come abundant in the country, various testi- 

 monials Iiave been recorded as to the beneficial 

 or injurious ell'ects we have reeieved from its 

 presence. .^11 are satisfied at the pieseiit time 

 that he is regarded as being destructive to the 

 interests of mankind. 



A new feature In lli(> (^ase lias been noticed 

 for the past two years. It is this: when tlie 

 wheat crop is standing in the field in shocks, 

 large droves of these birds will fly upon the 

 shocks and remain until they are gorged with 

 wheat, and they will remain in near-by places 

 as long as the wheat is still in the field. Now 

 the Knglish Sparrows are not numerous enough 

 in this part of the country to he a vvvy great 

 nuisance but if they increase for the next six 

 years as fast as they have in the past, wc will 

 undoubtedly have ample reason to raise a war 



cry for their extermination. The amount of 

 damage they do to our wheat at present is hard 

 to ascertain, but all know that the wheat inter- 

 est of our country is large and with the yearly 

 increase of this bird asti>nisliing facts may be 

 brought to light in Ibe near future. 



Occurence of the Yellow-belHed 

 Woodpecker in New Haven, Ct. 



I',V W. li. \ AN NAMK. 



The lirst lime I imticed this bird was in 

 .\ugusl, ISS,"), in the Wbjtc Mountains. It was 

 quite abund.-mt, bul- all the specimens shot 

 were young birds. Ueturning to New Haven 

 in September I found them lolcrably common 

 and they remained late in the fall, in .\pril, 

 l8S(i, I i-eceivcd a full plumaged m.-ilc, (.Vjiril 

 lOth, I think, but I am absent fium my collec- 

 tion and can give no exact dates). On the next 

 day my friend, Mr. A. H. Verrill, shot another. 

 1 have the specimen still, as well as several 

 others, if any doubt its identity. In Septem- 

 ber and Octol)er 1887, I found them common. 



This bird is particularly jiartial to coniferous 

 trees. I never tliought lliein shy, on the con- 

 trary I have considei-ed tluMii quite tame. They 

 are often found within the city limils. I have 

 noticed that tliey are very active in dodging 

 around the tree when approached closely. 

 Their ciinnnonest note is a sort of squeal. 



A Timely Word in Behalf of the 

 Crow, Corvus americanus. 



I'.V I01>WAUI> TKNNANT. 



Early one morning in May last a fi'iend of 

 mine, a well-to-do farmer, called on me and 

 said he wished to know some way to jioison 

 Crows. He said that they had bothered him 

 ctmsiderably for the past three years and this 

 season he wanted to be riil of them, and asked 

 me it I couli! giv<: him the desireil information. 

 I told him that I coulil, but did not feel as 

 though I ought to, for the simple reason that 

 crows were more useful birds than most people 

 were aware of, and askeil him in regard lo the 

 nature and extent of the damage iliim>. He 

 said tliat three years ago this spring he ploughed 

 up an old piece of land about three acres in ex- 

 tent and planted it with corn, and as soon as the 

 seed was up the Crows began to congregate and 



