CHAPTER XIII. 



THE ENGLISH SPARROW. 



The European house-sparrow, familiarly known to Ameri- 

 cans as the English sparrow, was first introduced into the 

 United States in 1850, when eight pairs were brought from 

 England to Brooklyn, New York. These did not thrive, and 

 two years later a large lot of the birds were brought to the same 

 city and liberated during the spring of 1853 in Greenwood 

 Cemetery. During the next twenty years extensive importa- 

 tions were made, the birds being brought from England and 

 Germany and liberated in Maine, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, 

 Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas. The 

 largest consignment was that received in Philadelphia, when 

 one thousand birds were set free. After the sparrows had 

 become established in these various centres, misguided men 

 assisted their migrations by carrying them to towns and cities 

 in which they were not yet found. Everywhere they were 

 petted and watched over; in some States special laws were 

 enacted to protect them : the people fostered an evil that is 

 not now easily subdued. Even when kindly Nature sent the 

 great northern shrike to check the sparrow's increase on 

 Boston Common, the authorities hired a man to shoot the 

 shrikes and save the sparrows, — a reversal of the wiser 

 process. 



The sparrows seem to have been first imported to destroy 

 canker-worms and other insects affecting fruit- and shade- 

 trees. People annoyed by the defoliation of avenues of 

 shade-trees hailed with delight the feathered friends that 

 were to rid them of their crawling foes. The enthusiasm 

 passed from town to town, resulting in a sparrow boom that 

 sent the prices of American-bred birds so high that European 

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