444 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1913. 



might make to rid the smitten land of the plague would be but a 

 mockery, the farmers turned their eyes longingly to the natural 

 enemy of the caterpillar — the bird. But the native birds — though 

 they had lived in closest companionship with the Maoris — had been 

 taught the treachery of the white man in a school that reeked with 

 blood, and those that had not been killed had retreated from the 

 vicinity of the settlements, visiting the insect-ridden fields occasion- 

 ally only. 



Wherefore insectivorous birds from the old country were intro- 

 duced, and the one that multiplied most rapidly was the common 

 house sparrow. And Passer domestunis soon cut short the career of 

 the caterpillars. 



As digestion is exceedingly rapid in birds, and as they feed for the 

 most part throughout the day, they are peculiarly adapted for the 

 suppression of abnormal outbreaks of vegetable as well as of animal 

 life. 



That formidable imported weed, the Scotch thistle, threatened at 

 one time to overrun the whole of New Zealand. Much time and 

 money was spent by the settlers in cutting off the plants close to the 

 ground, and in pouring turpentine upon the split stumps, hoping 

 thereby to kill the roots. Vain labor. The wind-driven clouds of 

 thistledown, which were planting the weed far and wide, grew yearly 

 denser and more frequent. At length the fields became a packed 

 growth of prickly plants, which nothing could face. 



The sparrows took to eating the seed. In tens of thousands they 

 fed on it, giving it the preference of all other hard food, and the 

 weed was conquered. 



To-day in New Zealand the sparrow is looked upon as an impudent 

 thief without a redeeming feature in its character. No one, of course, 

 can say what would happen if the bird was dismissed from the coun- 

 try, though it is probable that the Dominion would be again overrun 

 with caterpillars and thistles. Setting aside this hypothetical ques- 

 tion, the good the sparrow does must far outweigh the evil. This 

 statement receives confirmation in the bountiful harvests with which 

 New Zealand is blessed. Never were the sparrows more numerous; 

 never the complaints against them more bitter; yet the yield of grain 

 is without precedent. 



The growling of the New Zealand farmer at the sparrow justifies 

 Virgil's complaint of the "miserly husbandman." Miserly, indeed, 

 and blind. Not a grain will he give to the bird which has labored 

 unceasingly with him for the production of his crops; but whole fields 

 of wheat to the caterpillar. 



Parenthetically I may mention that, though I have written here 

 in defense of the introduction of the European sparrow into New 

 Zealand, I am not an advocate of acclimatization. It is true that one 

 can point to cases where a foreign bird has been introduced to per- 



