Drummond. — On Introduced Birds. 237 



Stevens liberated the historical five in Lyttelton. The first 

 pairs in America were liberated in Brooklyn, but they did not 

 succeed very well, and a second attempt had to be made, a 

 large shipment being sent from England in 1853. The birds 

 were carefully watched, fed. and protected. Into some districts 

 they were transported; into others they went voluntarily, and 

 formed colonies. By 1875 there were many large colonies in 

 different parts of the country, and a bulletin issued by the 

 United States Department says, " From that time to the present 

 the marvellous rapidity of the sparrow's multiplication, the 

 surpassing smftness of its extension, and the prodigious size 

 of the area it has overspread, are without parallel in the history 

 of any bird. Like a noxious weed transplanted to a fertile 

 soil, it has taken root and has become disseminated over half 

 a continent before the significance of its presence has come to 

 be understood." 



Exaggerated reports of the benefit the bird had conferred 

 upon settlers in the districts in the United States into which it 

 had been first introduced helped largely to foster its increase. 

 Many people in the United States went to the expense of pur- 

 chasing and shipping sparrows to considerable distances in the 

 belief that they were insectivorous birds and must prove bene- 

 ficial wherever they could be naturalised. In this way a spar- 

 row " boom " was started, and the price of sparrows in New 

 York went up to such a point that many people desirous 

 of obtaining the birds found it cheaper to club together and 

 import them direct from England. 



I directed special inquiries to asceHain if possible the manner 

 in which the sparrow in New Zealand regulates its diet. It 

 would be interesting to know the proportions of grain and 

 insects it consumes, and whether, if a dish of insects and a dish 

 of grain were placed in front of it, it would take the insects 

 before the grain. 



Large numbers of farmers in this country have come to the 

 conclusion that the sparrow has entirely lost its insectivorous 

 habits, and has become a grain-eater pure and simple. Thev 

 say that while there is a speck of grain about or a seed of any 

 kind the sparrow will not trouble about the insects, unless it 

 is to feed the young. Some attempts have been made to put 

 the sparrow's weakness in this respect to an actual test. One 

 correspondent states that when insects were placed round a 

 sparrow's nest the bird left them alone, and flew to an adjacent 

 wheat-field or a garden of sweet young vegetables. So far 

 as the replies to my circular are concerned, there has been onlv 

 one case of this kind, and against it there are the statements of 

 many correspondents that the sparrow still eats many insects. 



