394 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



nests. To give Satan his due, they do in late summer and fall 

 eat the seeds of Polygonums^ especially P. aviculare, which 

 grows in a mat along the roadsides, and other roadside weed 

 seeds are also eaten to a considerable amount, but here ends 

 the small good they do; now for some of the harm. They 

 go into the oat, barley and wheat fields near Bangor as well 

 as elswhere in the State in flocks at the time the grain is getting 

 ripe and feast on it day after day, breaking down much grain 

 in their noisy squabbling and bickering. Green corn and 

 green peas are relished so much that it is a fight in the city to 

 keep the infernal Sparrows and Doves from destroying them, 

 the latter at planting time and the former when the product 

 of such seed as escaped the Doves is "in the milk." Cherries, 

 strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and other cultivated 

 fruit are greatly relished by them. 



The menace the Sparrows are to our native birds is a subject 

 for future worry. They occupy all bird houses and when the 

 Martins, Swallows, Bluebirds, and Wrens appear in the spring 

 their homes must be fought for, and as far as I am able to 

 ascertain, the Purple Martins are the only species able to suc- 

 cessfully drive the Sparrows and only after repeated assertion 

 of their rights. The House Wren was a common bird about 

 Bangor in my boyhood days and I attribute its imminent, if 

 not already completed extermination in Maine to the English 

 Sparrow. There have been no House Wrens about Bangor 

 for at least twenty years, and it is nearly eight years since a 

 House Wren was reported anywhere in Maine. 



I have seen the Sparrows attack our native birds such as 

 Chipping Sparrow, Yellow Warbler and other small birds 

 which had the misfortune to dare to nest in the trees and city 

 orchards the Sparrows had pre-empted, drive them from their 

 nests and throw out their eggs or young. Since one of my 

 neighbors has paraded the street daily, shot gun in hand, and 

 shot every English Sparrow visible, the number of native birds 

 nesting in the large park across the way and in the neighboring 



