246 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



food is placed in some convenient spot at tlie same liour each day for 

 a week, the Si)arrows will gather in dense flocks to feed, and large 

 numbers may be killed at one time by firing- upon them with small 

 shot. Sometimes they may be successfully netted or trapped, but 

 this requires considerable skill. They may be poisoned liy grain 

 soaked in tincture of ]iux vomica or in Fowler's solution of arsenic, 

 but poisoning is attended with some danger, and should be attempted 

 only by official sparrow-killers. 



Large numbers may be destroyed and increase jirevented by the 

 systematic destruction of their nests, eggs, and young. By the aid 

 of an iron rod and hook, set in the end of a long pole, most of their 

 nests can be reached and brought do"wn. This method pi^omises most 

 satisfactory results. 



They may be easily driven from their roosting-places by disturbing 

 them on several successive nights. A very efficacious method is to 

 throw water upon them when at roost. In cities where hose-pipe is 

 ava,ilable the process is simple and certain. They may be kept out 

 of ornamental vines in the same manner, particularly in the breed- 

 ing season, when a thorough soaking not only disconcerts the old 

 birds and kills their young, but at the same time does much good by 

 wetting the vines and washing out their filth. 



The Sparrow as an article of food. 



In this connection it should not be forgotten that the English Spar- 

 row is an excellent article of food, equaling many of the smaller 

 game birds. In fact, at restaurants it is commonly sold under the 

 name of "Rice-bird," even at times of the year when there are no 

 Rice-birds in the country. 



Prof. J. A. Lintner, State entomologist of New York, informs me 

 that English Sparrows are now sold largely in the market at Albany, 

 N. y., "one dealer reporting a monthly sale of about 2,000." 



RAVAGES OF RICE-BIRDS. 



One of the most important industries of the Southern States, the 

 cultivation of rice, is crippled and made precarious by the bi-annual 

 attacks of birds. Many kinds of birds feed upon rice, but the bird 

 which does more injury than all the rest combined is the Bobolink 

 of the North {Doliciionyx oryzivorus) , called "Reed-bird" along the 

 Chesapeake, and " Rice-bird'" in the South. 



IsText in irnportance after the Bobolink is the Red-shouldered Black- 

 bird (^(y is Zams phceniceiis) , which does much harm and some good, 

 as will appear later. Still another blackbird figures prominently .in 

 the rice fields; it is the large Boat-tailed Grakle {Quiscalus major), 

 called "Jackdaw" by the planters. 



The name of the "Rice-bird" is familiar to most persons in the 

 North, but the magnitude of its depredations is hardly known out- 

 side of the narrow belt of rice fields along the coasts of a few of the 

 Southern States. Innumerable hosts of these birds visit the rice 

 fields at the time of planting in spring, devouring the seed-grain be- 

 fore the fields are flooded, and again at harvest-time in the fall, when, 

 if the maturing grain is "in the milk," they feed upon it to a ruinous 

 extent. 



To prevent total destruction of the crop during the periods of bird 

 invasion, thousands of men and boys, called "bird-minders," are em- 



