To give some idea of the amount of seed eaten by 

 sparrow >. Beal baj made some estimates for the State 

 of Iowa. II' hreena figures for only one kind of spar- 

 row, namely, the tree-sparrow, which is reiy abundant 

 in the Northern States. He begins by estimating that 



m- ten sparrowi to each square mile, or one spar- 

 row to -ixty-four acres. If, as he says, each sparrow 

 eats daily an average of one-fourth of an ounce of seed 

 for two hundred days, they destroy in that State alone 

 1,750,000 pounds, or 875 tons ol ■reed-eeed; allowing 

 20,000 pounds to a car-load, this is enough seed to load 

 a little over eighty-seven car-. llesidcs this one kind 

 of sparrow there are manv others that eat largely of 



.umI the amount of seed destroyed must be much 

 larger than these figures show. Suppose instead of be- 

 ing eaten by birds this vast «|iiantity of seed were to 

 grow up as weeds, what would become of the farmers? 

 In the Southern States, while we have not the tree- 

 sparrow, we have a numher of equally useful varieties, 

 Mich as the white-throated sparrow, the white-crowned 

 sparrow, the song-sparrow, the lie ld-sparrow, the fox- 

 sparrow, and l number of others. Just stop | moment 

 and try to think of the vast number of weed-seed eaten 



vintex hj the sparrows in each State, Even the 

 much abused English sparrow is known to sal the seed 

 of many weeds. 



Beal says: "While sparrows are noted seed-e; 



they tl<) not by any means confine themselves to a 



table diet During the summer, and especially in 



the breeding sea >(.n, they eat many insects, and probably 



feed their young large)] upon the same food. An ex- 



