Birds and the Fruit-Farm 315 



destruction of crows is mistaken policy, for the 

 crow performs important services to agriculture, 

 and his extermination would be a loss to the 

 country/'^ 



House wren, phoebe, martin? We used to 

 have these cheery policemen about our houses in 

 great nimibers, but the English sparrows — so it 

 is believed — have quite driven them away. But 

 whither have they driven them? The British 

 birds did not eat them. I strongly suspect that 

 the boy and the cat and the man and the gim and 

 the English sparrows may account for the sus- 

 picious absence of these old friends. But if you 

 really believe that the British brown-coats did it, 

 then fire away at the brown-coats, perhaps after 

 reading that comforting pamphlet published by 

 our Government at Washington, on "The English 

 Sparrow as a Pest.** Possibly as the British birds 

 are now very niimerous we have here the way out 

 in otir demand for something to kill. Boy and 

 man thirst to kill something, and here are the 

 English sparrows. If perchance in killing them 

 you save robins, crows, flickers, mourning-doves, 

 woodpeckers, cherrybirds, owls, quail, orioles, 

 grosbeaks, martins, bluebirds, let us by all means 

 save robins, crows, doves, orioles, and the rest. 

 But I may, I must, submit another morsel of 

 testimony which may temper wrath against the 

 English sparrow. At the comer of the east porch, 

 amidst the vine, a Virginia Creeper, — a chippet 



* United States Year-book of Agriculture, 1907, p. 170. 



