350 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pul). Doc. 



birds are in the nest. All superfluous cats should be quietly 

 chloroformed. No one should ever turn a cat loose to hunt 

 for its subsistence. 



Among the words of wisdom to be found in the old numbers 

 of the " Old farmer's almanack " we find a means of break- 

 ing the house cat of the bird-killing habit. When the cat 

 catches a bird, the dead bird should be tied securely under 

 her neck and kept there as long as it will hold together. The 

 disagreeable consequences of her act disgusts the cat, and 

 she will not touch a bird thereafter. People who have tried 

 this plan assert that it is effectual. It is well-known that 

 some very intelligent and well-bred cats may be prevented 

 from killing birds by punishment, but this will have no effect 

 on others. 



The English sj^arrow seems to be increasing in numbers in 

 the country towns, and occupying more ground than formerly. 

 It continues to drive out swallows, bluebirds and other species. 

 The increase of poultry raising in the country is especially 

 favorable to the sparrows, which annually devour thousands 

 of bushels of grain intended for the fowls. Nevertheless, the 

 sparrow, being a bird, has some of the good qualities of birds. 

 Correspondents in the cities gratefully refer to the good these 

 noisy foreigners are doing among the trees and shrubbery. 

 Mr. S. A. Eaunce of Boston writes that the sparrows have 

 saved his roses from the ^' green worm " ; also, they destroy 

 the rose slug. Mrs. Ella M. Beals of Marblehead writes 

 that the sparrows get a small worm that eats the new shoots 

 on the cherry trees. Notwithstanding the fact that the diet 

 of the sparrow is such that it is far less useful than any of the 

 native birds, its great numbers make its useful habits very 

 effectual. 



But now comes a new danger, by reason of the presence 

 of the sparrow about the poultry yard. Dr. Philip B. Hadley 

 of the Rhode Island Experiment Station writes that in that 

 locality over 80 per cent, of English sparrows have been 

 found to carry the organism of a Coccidium which produces 

 a disease called coccidiosis of fowls. This is the extremely 

 fatal malady which has now made turkey raising almost im- 

 possible in New England, and which is more or less fatal to 



