1891. j PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 269 



our lawns, parks and gardens, have rapidly and steadily dimin- 

 ished since the hosts of pugnacious sparrows have appeared. This 

 species is more or less gregarious at all seasons of the year. 

 When not engaged in rearing their young, they are always observed 

 in flocks. In the late summer and autumn they assemble in flocks 

 of hundreds, and daily repair to the wheat and corn fields in the 

 vicinity of cities and towns, where they commit serious depreda- 

 tions that are only checked by harvesting the crops. 



Professor Everhart and myself examined the stomach contents 

 of one hundred and fourteen English sparrows captured in the 

 borough of West Chester and vicinity during all the months of 

 the year. Fourteen of those birds were young ones taken from 

 the nest, the others were adult birds. Of this number, five had 

 fed upon insects, the balance had subsisted on cereals and the 

 buds and blossoms of fruit trees, and on numerous garden prod- 

 ucts. Now, there is one thing which you will often hear asserted 

 by persons who attempt to defend the English sparrow. They 

 say, "You naturalists will never investigate the food of young 

 birds. Sparrows feed their young exclusively on insects, hence 

 are highly beneficial." Now, I will state that the English sparrow, 

 and in fact all birds, with a few exceptions (we have exceptions 

 to nearly all rules), feed their young on an animal diet. The 

 sparrow is not an exception to this rule. Young English sparrows 

 are fed in part on different forms of insect life, but, as I have 

 already told you, the adult birds not only feed their young, but 

 themselves eat, a vast amount of vegetable matter, and the bird 

 should be destroyed. One of the characteristic features of the 

 sparrow, in fact, the chief characteristic, is his heavy, cone-shaped 

 bill. When you see such a bill on any bird, it shows that he feeds 

 on a grain or seed diet, because that bill is adapted especially to 

 the breaking up of seeds. Now, take a bird that feeds on insects. 

 Such, for instance, is the whippoorwill. This bird feeds exclu- 

 sively on insects, such as beetles. It has a soft bill, and one which 

 will readily bend. It is, strictly speaking, an insectivorous bird. 

 Take our common barn-swallow. This bird has a bill adapted to 

 feeding on insects. It has not a bill built for the purpose of crush- 

 ing, as is the bill of the sparrow. Any bird that has a heavy bill 

 is a grain-eating bird. 



In 1889 the United States department of agriculture issued 

 a bulletin on the English sparrow in North America. This 

 pamphlet consists of about four hundred pages, and is an 

 exhaustive consideration of the subject, in all its bearings. 

 It shows that the English sparrow is increasing with wonder- 



