152 . REPORT UPON COTTON INSECTS. 



the most valuable insect-eaters, robins not excepted, and I also saw target-shooting in 

 the open field ; the target fastened to large trees upon which were birds' nests. Dur- 

 ing recent years the protection of sparrows has surely saved the native birds, and I 

 have never seen in Cambridge more native birds, and never heard more beautiful song- 

 birds, than in the summer of 1877. 



Concerning the diminished number of native birds in the Smithsonian grounds in 

 Washington, I am assured that one of the foremost American ornithologists denies it 

 to be the fact. After all, it should not be forgotten that by the rapid increase of the 

 cities (Cambridge has now more than twice as many inhabitants as it had in 1867), 

 and with the incessant disappearance of trees and shrubs, some kinds of birds may 

 prefer to go to more secluded places. 



The argument that sparrows drive other birds out of the bird-boxes is rather a 

 funny one, when it will be remembered that all those bird-boxes were placed only for 

 the sparrow. I think every bird will. fight for its home ; nevertheless I observed, in 

 1877, sparrows driven out of the box which they had used the year before by swal- 

 lows, which raised their young safely among a dozen of boxes near by used by spar- 

 rows. In a box in the garden at the corner of Broadway and Harvard streets, a pair 

 of swallows and a pair of sparrows settled last year together. The box had only one 

 entrance through which both had to pass, and as there were two glass windows in the 

 box, both nests could be observed, and the young of both were safely raised. If, as it 

 seems to be the case, that native birds prefer now to breed in bird-boxes, which they did 

 not and could not do here in former years, it would be simply reasonable to place more 

 boxes everywhere, and, as is done in Europe, different sizes for different kinds of birds. 



Nobody has ever contended that the sparrow is a beauty or a charming singer. In- 

 deed he is only an indefatigable business man, minding first his own affairs, as is not 

 uncommon among business men. But he is admirably adapted for his business, which 

 is to destroy insects; he is very enduring, staying through the winter, when few 

 other insect-eating birds are here ; he begins to breed much earlier and breeds much 

 oftener than other birds, and is, therefore, more able to give an effective help in the 

 destruction of insects and weeds. But it is true that he should be supported, as Mr. 

 Allen remarks judiciously in the report, through enforcing, by statutory enactments, 

 the protection of the fruit and shade trees by all available means. 



As no naturalist would pretend that a bird, by importation into a foreign but simi- 

 lar climate, could entirely change its character in a few years, the sparrow question 

 will probably here go through the same, though briefer, stages of opinion as in Europe. 

 I consider the sparrow to be a most valuable addition to the native birds, and most 

 certainly beneficial to both horticulturists and farmers. 



And now, to return once more to the other side of the question, we 

 will quote an article by Dr. Elliott Coues, one of our greatest ornitholo- 

 gists, published in the American Naturalist, August, 1878: 



"It is very regretablo that the 'sparrow question,' which has already become a 

 matter of national moment, should have degenerated into such a miserable personal 

 controversy between the sentimentalists who misrepresent the facts, and the ornitholo- 

 gists who understand them, that a prudent person, whatever his views, might refrain 

 from having anything to do with it. But it is with me a matter of conscientious 

 discharge of my duty to place the facts properly before the people, that they may be 

 informed and warned in time, before the pest shall have become ineradicable. I do 

 not write for ornithologists ; for, so far as I am aware, there is not a scientific 

 ornithologist in America, among those who have expressed any decided opinion, who 

 are in favor of the wretched interlopers which we have so thoughtlessly introduced, 

 and played with, and cuddled, like a parcel of hysterical, slate-pencil-eating school- 

 girls. I have held a tight rein on this controversy from the first, and probably know 

 more of its inside history than any other person ; and I am in a position to affirm that 

 the sneers, the invectives, the ridicule and abuse, and the wild assertions of the leader 



