(41) 



PROF. BAKBOUK oiice couiited the number of larvae taken from a sing-le 

 elm tree in front of his window on the Yale campus in one afternoon by a 

 Sparrow, assisted b^' his mate, and found it to be about 2.S0. When the 

 nestling's to which the^' were carried, and also the old birds were g-orged 

 with the food, the male continued to collect the larva;, picking them to piec- 

 es on the flagging in front of the building. But the good thus done b_v the 

 birds seems small compared with the enormous amount of injury. 



DK. ward: "There are two sides to the argument based on the des- 

 truction of insects. The destructive power of the native insectivorous 

 birds must be deducted from the destroying capacity of the Sparrow to get 

 the real balance of affairs." 



PROF. BRUNER had some evidence against the Sparrow. The birds that 

 the Sparrow drives out are migratory, being here only during the season 

 when insects are available, while the Sparrow remains with us and does 

 harm during a part of the j^ear when the other birds would be away. The 

 Sparrow is not insectivorous to the same degree as the birds supplanted, 

 and is not at all a destroyer of hairj' caterpillars, or insects injurious to 

 shade trees. As a destroyer of insects in gardens, such as cabbage- worms 

 and grasshoppers, he is near the head, but aside from a very few kinds of 

 insects the Sparrow is not an insect-destro^-er. In regions, as in that in- 

 fested by the gypsy moth, where the Sparrow has driven out the cuckoos, 

 orioles and other birds which feed on hairy caterpillars found on shade 

 trees, it has been found necessary to resort to artificial means on a large 

 scale to keep down the insects. Rethought, had they had the opportuni- 

 ty, the native birds would have proven of great assistance in this task. 



SUGGESTIONS AS TO AN ACCURATE AND UNIFORM METHOD 

 OF RECORDING OBSERVATIONS. 



DR. K. H. WOLCOTT. 



In the author's intercourse with ornithologists in various parts of the 

 country he has had frequent occasion to notice the variety of meanings as- 

 cribed by different persons to the words commonly used to denote the 

 abundance of birds. In comparing lists of the birds of different states he 

 has found it impossible to contrast, except in a verj' inexact manner, the 

 relative abundance of the species treated; and in the comparison of lists of 

 different dates the same difficulty is met with. The perusal of any state 

 list, our own included, gives one little upon which to base an idea as to the 

 density of the bird-population in different parts of the state, or as to the 

 manner in which any given species is spread over the state. 



Prof. Bruner's list of Nebraska birds contains thirty-four words used 

 by different correspondents to denote the relative abundance of different 

 species; and an examination of eight state and sectional lists furnishes, 

 curiously, a list of words precisely the same in number, but not identical. 

 These are partly well-chosen, partly not; some are euphonious, some very 

 awkward; many are evidently sj^nonymous, and used for the sake of varie-r 

 ty; part of them are exact in significance, but most of them very indefinite 

 in their meaning, though the conception maj' have been clear enough in 

 the mind of the writer. 



Terms indicative of the habit of appearance, such as solitary or gregar- 

 ious, of the manner of distribution, whether local or general, and of the 



