THE ENGLISH SPABROW. 3I7 



Mr. W'm. Oxford : If you want to get rid of the sparrows load 

 a gun with fine shot, throw some screenings on the snow and when 

 a flock has gathered shoot them. A\'e have shot as many as a dozen 

 at one shot. Another method we used, we would let them stav in the 

 nests until ready to fly when we would take a lantern and a net 

 and catch a whole nest full of young birds. There are many ways 

 to get rid of them. 



Mr. Emil Sahler: I have four or five pet kittens in my bam. 

 and I would not be without them. We have rats and mice in the 

 bam which they catch, and they will always watch for sparrows, 

 and whenever they get a chance they \\-iIl grab up a sparrow and eat 

 it. and if you poison tlie sparrow the cats will eat them and die. I 

 would rather be bothered with the sparrows than lose the cats. 



C. M. Loring: I think my friend Gibbs must be a ver>- long 

 suffering man. because I hardly know of any one who does not think 

 the little rascal is one of the greatest curses brought into the country-. 

 I have seen when the robins were pulling up the worms out of 

 the lawn the little rascal would jirnip in and pull the worms from 

 the robin. There is nothing too mean for the little rascal to do. 



Mr. Gibbs : I am glad to hear that the enemies of the English 

 sparrow will admit that he will eat a worm when somebody catches 

 it for him. 



THE ENGLISH SPARROW BEFRIENDED. 



I like this brave little bird as he is seen in our business streets, 

 where he most abounds, and am glad to go on record as his de- 

 fender. He is the only one who stays by us ever}- day in the year 

 except the blue-jay. The song birds come late and go early. But 

 for these two we could scarcely ever see a bird except occasionally 

 a flock of snow birds or a chance woodpecker for six or eight 

 months of our northern calendar. It is not true, as some believe, 

 that he always drives the song birds away from our homes. I live 

 in one of the oldest cities of northwestern Wisconsin. Our home 

 is not more than a quarter of a mile from the business center of the 

 cit>-. In that center the sparrow is the boss bird. There he makes 

 each jutt\-. freize. buttress and coisne of vantage, his nest and pro- 

 creant cradle, like the temple haunting martlet of Inverness ; but at 

 our residence, which is embowered in trees and fringed with a thicket 

 of natural shrubbery-, we have, in full command of the situation, 

 the robin, the oriole, the song sparrows, the brown thrush, tlie cat- 

 bird and some others. The orioles themselves are increasing so in 

 numbers that I have to keep enlargring my plantings of garden peas 

 to hold pace with their increasing wants ; and I have noticed that 

 they do not hide their nests as formerly, but hang them out closer 

 and closer to the house, and on the other branches where we can see 

 them feed the green peas to their young. 



