OPINION OF DR. ELLIOTT COUES. 155 



into positive illness by the incessant turmoil at the -window ; but others are. Nor do 

 I, I regret to say, own a house where the steps and window-sill and trellis- work and 

 lawn are so befilthed that none of my servants will stay if they have to clean up after 

 the birds ; others, however, are in such case. I grant that this is all a matter of taste 

 rather than of science, but such as it is, it is largely against the sparrow. 



"5. They have, at present, practically no natural enemies nor any check what- 

 ever upon limitless increase. This would bo undesirable, even in the case of the 

 most desirable birds ; as the case stands, we are repeating the history of the white weed and 

 Hie Norway rat.* 



" I have to make one suggestion and to offer two recommendations. 



"It is a fact, that with all this talk and countertalk about the/ood of the sparrow, 

 and to what extent it may feed upon insects injurious to our fruit and shade trees, 

 nobody has yet made the experiments obviously necessary to determine exactly what 

 the birds eat in the country. I would, therefore, suggest the obvious propriety of 

 finding out exactly, in the only proper and scientific way, instead of sawingthe air any 

 longer in such a futile way. I suggest that, at the height of the insect season, at the 

 time when the sparrows should be eating the bugs, if they ever do, in some places 

 fairly infested with bugs, a sufficient number of sparrows be killed and examined in 

 respect to the contents of their crops. Let the authorities of any of our large cities 

 preferably Boston, where the birds are said to have done so much good, and where the 

 sparrow combination talks loudest furnish to proper persons, say, five hundred spar- 

 rows, whose stomachs shall be examined by some competent botanist and entomologist 

 together. If noxious insects should be found to form the greatest portion, or even any 

 considerable portion, of the food of these birds, I would yield the case so far as this 

 particular count is concerned. At present I continue to believe that the scraping and 

 other occupation of the city forestering Othellos is not gone. 



"As to my recommendation, I am often asked, 'Would you then have sparrows ex- 

 terminated?' While I am not prepared to advise such an extreme measure as this, 

 I do not hesitate to declare that prompt and stringent measures should be taken, as a 

 matter of national economy, to check the increase of the birds. We have enough already. 

 Without unnecessary cruelty the numbers might be kept down, if not diminished, by 

 the following gradually and continually operating means : 



"I. Let the birds shift for themselves. Turn them loose, and put them on the same 

 footing as other birds that is, take down the boxes and all the special contrivances 

 for sheltering and petting the birds ; stop feeding them ; stop supplying them with 

 building materials ; let them take care of themselves. 



"II. Abolish the legal penalties for killing them. The birds are now under the arm of 

 the law, which protects them from most of the natural vicissitudes of bird life. Let 

 the boys kill them if they wish, or let them be trapped and used as pigeons or glass 

 balls are now used in shooting-matches among sportsmen. Vast numbers of pigeons 

 are destroyed in this way ; there are even ' sparrow clubs ' in various cities, which 

 make a business of practicing on various of our small birds, for which the European 

 sparrow would be an admirable substitute, answering all the conditions these marks- 

 men could desire. In this way the birds might even be made a source of some little 

 revenue, instead of a burden and a pest ; they are to be had in practically unlimited 

 numbers, and could be sold by the city to such persons as might desire to use them for 

 sporting purposes. 



" The present article is to be regarded as a mere outline of the important subject. 

 I have collected a voluminous mass of testimony during the past two or three years, 

 which I intend to digest, in order to bring the whole matter in its true light on per- 

 manent record, in treating of the species in the ' Birds of the Colorado Valley,' for the 

 plague has spread even to that remote portion of our much-besparrowetl country." 



" * A writer in the London Garden says : "It may be remembered that in one of the 

 back numbers of the ' Garden' I mentioned that the introduction of the sparrows would 

 turn out to be a great mistake, and they are now finding this out." 



