PR. ELLIOTT COUES ON THE ENGLISH SR ARROW. 153 



or leaders of the pro-sparrow faction, result from a frantic despair in the face of the 

 facts -which ornithologists coolly adduce. The fact that the sparrow is a nuisance in a 

 variety of ways, that it does not do any appreciable good, that it does a very obvious 

 amount of damage, that it harasses, drives off, and sometimes destroys useful native 

 birds, and that it has no place in the natural economy of this country, are patent to 

 every one who will take the trouble to see for himself. These same facts, some or all, 

 are disagreeably obvious to many persons, especially agriculturists whose fields and 

 gardens are assailed. All of these same facts are admitted by competent ornithologists 

 generally. None of them are publicly disputed, so far as I know, by any person or 

 persons whose authority has any weight in a question of this kind. 



" The friends of the sparrows in this country fall in the following categories : First, 

 those who know nothing and care nothing particularly about them except that they 

 rather like the pert and brusque familiarity of the birds a class composed chiefly of 

 children, women, and old fogies. Secondly, those who are or were instrumental in 

 getting the birds here, and who are interested, either in reputation or in pocket, to 

 keep them here. Thirdly, quasi-ornithologists who have been misled into hasty ex- 

 pressions of opinion to which they feel bound to stick. Fourthly, the claquers of the 

 last, who play a sort of ' Simon says up ' game. Fifthly, a very few intelligent and 

 scientific persons, but not practical nor professional ornithologists, who recognize fully 

 what little good the sparrow undeniably does, and shape a favorable argument mainly 

 from the undisputed advantages which result from a just and proper number of 

 the sparrows in Europe. 



"Most of my antagonists in this matter those that fall in the first four categories 

 above named are of course not worth serious attention, for they either have no 

 decided opinions of any sort, or else they are not open to instruction. But I have a 

 particular word to say to those who draw an honest argument, not without some show 

 of reason, from the state of things in Europe. I grant, if they wish, everything they 

 adduce, from Pr6vost (who by the way is a great tallyho! for the members of the third 

 category above) to the last investigator of the contents of sparrows' crops ; and I simply 

 reply that the argument does not apply to the case of the sparrow in America. In Europe 

 these birds are part and parcel of the natural fauna of the country. They are not, as 

 I understand, petted, pampered, and sedulously protected from their natural enemies 

 as they are here. They shift for themselves, find certain sources of food supply, have 

 a fair share of natural enemies, and are kept within due bounds of multiplication by 

 natural causes; so that the "balance of power," to use a political phrase, adjusts 

 itself. In short, they have their useful part to play and they play it ; they have their 

 natural checks, and their increase is naturally checked. They are useful birds ; and 

 when, after somewhat excessive multiplication, from any cause, they have been inju- 

 diciously exterminated in certain districts, it has been found necessary to restore such 

 districts at great trouble and expense. All this, I believe, is admitted on all hands. 



"But the principle of mutatis mutandis does not apply to the sparrow in America. 

 The things that would have to be changed to make the sparrows fit here cannot be 

 changed. The complement of our air fauna was made up without these birds. There 

 is no room for them ; and if there is any work for them, time has shown that they 

 slight it or neglect it altogether. The only way to make the sparrows eat the worms 

 they were imported to destroy, and which they seem to specially dislike, would be to 

 starve them into such unpalatable fare. Instead of that, we sedulously feed them 

 from our tables till they are grown too fat and la/y to think of worms. And if we did 

 not do so, it would be useless to expect them to take to a diet they do not relish, when 

 the streets are full of manure, of which they are especially fond, and the trees of our 

 orchards are full of fruit blossoms, and the gardens are full of small fruit, and the fields 

 are waving with grain, all these things being the natural food of birds of the sparrow 

 tribe, to whom an insectivorous diet is only an occasional and temporary variation. 



"Again, the matter of the limitless multiplication of these pestilent famine-breeders 

 presents itself very differently in this country. A single female has been known to lay 

 over thirty eggs in a season. They ordinarily raise three or four broods a year, and 



