238 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



Some idea of the alarming rapidity with which it is at the present 

 moment multiplying and extending its range may be had from the 

 fact that in the United States alone it has spread during the past 

 fifteen years at the average rate of 59,000 square miles per year, and 

 in the United States and Canada together at the rate of 69,000 square 

 miles per year. But this average rate manifestly is misleading, so 

 far as both extremes are concerned, for species increase in geometri- 

 cal ratio. The rate for some time after 1870 was comparatively slow, 

 while during the present decade it has progressed with astonishing 

 rapidity, till in the year 188G the new territory invaded must have 

 reached the enormous iiumber of 516,600 square miles, as may be 

 seen from the following; 



Table shoicing approximately the extension in /square miles of the English Sparrov), 



in periods of five years each, from 1870 till 1885, and its extension during the year 



1886.* 



Square miles. 



From 1870 to 1875 it spread over 500 



From 1875 to 1880 it spread over 15, 640 



From 1880 to 1885 it spread over 500, 7G0 



In the year 1886 it spread over 516, 5U0 



The Sparrow an enemy of our native birds. 



Of all the native birds which habitually make their homes near the 

 abodes of man, the Martin is the only species which is able to liold its 

 own against the Sparrows, and numerous instances are on record 

 where even the Martin has been beaten and forced to abandon its 

 former nesting-places by these belligerent aliens. It sometimes hap- 

 pens that the Martin is killed outright, as apiJears from the following 

 account, just received from Prof. F. H. King, of River Falls, Wis. : 



Mr. H. T. Baker, of Berlin, Wis., lias related to me that last summer he vras a 

 witness of a conflict between some English Sparrows and Purple Martins, in which 

 the Sparrows were trying to get possession of breeding-places which had been occu- 

 pied for several years by the Martins, The Sparrows had congregated in a large 

 flock upon a tree standing near a building, in the cornice under the eaves of which 

 the INIartins had their nests. From this point a number of Sj^arrows would together 

 attack the Martins, and then return to the tree, to be followed by a similar squad. 

 Tills method of attack was followed until three Martins had been killed, some of the 

 IMartins having had their eyes picked out. It need hardly be added that the Mar- 

 tins were forced to leave. The same gentleman tells me that he saw the Sparrows 

 kill in the same manner a bird, the name of which he did not know, in the city of 

 Milwaukee. 



The birds which have suffered most from the English Sparrow, and 

 whose cheery presence in the parks and lawns ni the nesting season 

 we no longer, or only rarely, enjoy are the Robin, Catbird, Bluebird, 

 Wren, Song Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, Yellow-bird. Oriole, Vireo, 

 and Phoebe. Not only does the SpaiTow drive away and sometimes 

 kill the adult birds, but when it finds their nests it throws out the eggs 

 and young, and not infrequently feasts upon them. Dr. B. Harry 

 Warren, State ornithologist of Pennsylvania, writes: 



Our native birds have rapidly and steadily diminished m numbers sjince the 

 Sparrows came. Former plentiful residents are rare. Even transient ^•isitants and 

 migrants have been so pursued by the usurper that they now seem to avoid West 

 Chester as a plag-ue-stricken spot. In 1877 I saw two Cock Sparrows attack a nest 



* This table of necessity is largely theoretical, though the ratio of increase must 

 be very nearly correct. Year by year much of the repi-oductive energy of the Spar- 

 row is" expended in filling up the smaller towns and villages of the area which, so 

 far as tlie larger tovvus and cities are concerned, it covered some time previously. 



