BIRDS OF NEW YORK 26 1 



The sparrow begins its nesting operations with the first thaw of 

 springtime. I have seen the old birds carrying building materials in 

 December, January, February and March, but in the first warm wave of 

 March nestbuilding begins in earnest, and the sparrows are continually 

 fighting and pairing. The nest is usually completed by the third week 

 in March and eggs are quite common by the first week in April. There 

 is no question but in some of the warmer cities nesting is considerably 

 earlier than this, but in western New York the young birds are rarely 

 seen out of the nest until the 20th of April or the 1st of May. 



The various means of destroying the House sparrow are well described 

 in Farmers Bulletin 493 of the Biological Survey of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture. There is no doubt that the number of this 

 pest could be appreciably diminished by poisoning if this were practiced 

 during the coldest, snowiest portion of the winter; but this means should 

 not be employed except by persons who understand thoroughly the method 

 of procedure and would practise the utmost care in protecting the poisoned, 

 grain from pigeons and other birds that might get it later in the season. 

 In addition to this, a very effective method would be to destroy all the 

 nests with the old birds during the breeding season. Boxes erected at 

 a moderate elevation, as soon as they are inhabited by sparrows, could 

 be visited after nightfall and a net thrown over the hole, to be used to 

 secure the parent bird. In this way all the breeding birds could often 

 be secured ; but those that nest in eaves and inaccessible places must be 

 secured by the flobert dustshot cartridge or the shotgun, and as soon as 

 these methods are practised, many of the neighboring citizens object. 

 Some even pride themselves in protecting and singing the praises of the 

 much despised English sparrow, and he has many points of interest and 

 some points to admire. He is a character of great individuality, but in 

 the author's experience the more he is studied the less he is admired, 

 although we may wonder at his success. In some of the western states, 

 an organized warfare is often waged at certain seasons against the English 

 sparrow and wagon loads of the birds are destroyed by universal hunts. 



