40 THE ENGLISH SPARROW. 
No. 17. 
ENGLISH SPARROW. 
InTRODUCED. Passer domesticus (Linn.). 
Synonyms.—Housg Sparrow; Domestic SPARROW; HoopLumM. 
Description.—Adult male: Above ashy gray; middle of back and scapulars 
heavily streaked with black and bay; tail dusky; a chestnut patch behind eye 
spreading on shoulders; lesser wing-coverts chestnut; middle coverts bordered 
with white, forming a conspicuous white bar during flight; remainder of wing 
dusky with bay edging; below ashy gray or dirty white; a black throat-patch 
continuous with lores and fore-breast; bill and feet horn color. Adult female: 
Brownish rather than gray above; bay edging lighter; no chestnut, unmarked 
below. Length 5.50-6.25 (139.7-158.8); wing 3.00 (76.2); tail 2.20 (55.9); 
bill .50 (12.7). Sexes of about equal size. 
Recognition Marks.—‘Sparrow size”; black throat and breast of male; 
female obscure brownish and gray. 
Nest, a globular mass of grass, weeds and trash, heavily lined with feathers, 
placed in tree and with entrance in side; or else heavily lined cavity anywhere. 
Holes in apple trees and crannies in shale banks are favorite places. Eggs, 4-7, 
whitish, heavily dotted and speckled with olive-brown or dull black. The mark- 
ings often gather about the larger end; sometimes they entirely obscure the 
ground color. Av. size, .86 x .62 (21.8 x 15.8). 
General Range.—'‘Nearly the whole of Europe, but replaced in Italy by P. 
italiae, extending eastward to Persia and Central Asia, India, and Ceylon” 
(Sharpe). “Introduced and naturalized in America, Australia, New Zealand, 
etc.”’ (Chapman). 
Range in Ohio.—‘The first importation of this pest into the state directly 
from Europe was into Cleveland in 1869, twenty pairs. During the same year 
thirty-three pairs were taken from New York to Cincinnati and Warren. Then 
followed importations into Marietta, 1870; Coshocton and Portsmouth, 1874; 
Steubenville about 1880 or 1881; Wapakoneta about 1882, which seems to have 
been the last importation. Since that time it has spread well over the state, 
in the more settled districts even invading the country places and farm buildings, 
until the tendency to nest in the woods grows strong” (Jones). 
WITHOUT question the most deplorable event in the history of American 
ornithology was the introduction of the English Sparrow. The extinction of 
the Great Auk, the passing of the Wild Pigeon and the Turkey,—sad as these 
are. they are trifles compared to the wholesale reduction of our smaller birds, 
which is due to the invasion of that wretched foreigner, the English Sparrow. 
To be sure he was invited to come, but the offense is all the more rank because 
it was partly human. His introduction was effected in part by people who 
ought to have known better, and would, doubtless, if the science of ornithology 
had reached its present status as long ago as the early fifties. The maintenance 
and prodigious increase of the pest is still due in a measure to the imbecile 
