154 BIRD FRIENDS 



One thing that makes the sparrows so trouble- 

 some is the large number of young that they raise 

 each year. They begin nesting in late winter or 

 early spring and may rear five or six broods, in- 

 cluding from twenty to thirty young, in a season. 

 It has been estimated that the offspring from a sin- 

 gle pair of sparrows in ten years might number 

 275,000,000,000. 



Remedies. Where bird-houses are put out to at- 

 tract native birds, the sparrows usually attempt to 

 occupy them, and must be driven away or killed if 

 we wish to induce the native birds to nest there. 



The sparrow may be kept from using boxes in- 

 tended for smaller birds by making the hole so small 

 that the sparrows cannot enter. The sparrow can- 

 not enter a one-and-one-eighth-inch hole, but this 

 hole is large enough for the chickadee, and an inch 

 hole is large enough for the wren. 



Sparrows may be prevented from rearing their 

 young in bird-boxes by removing their eggs every 

 week or two during the nesting-season, and some- 

 times the sparrows will leave as a result; but the 

 only satisfactory solution seems to be to kill the 

 sparrows. This may be done in three ways: by 

 shooting, by poisoning, and by trapping. 



The enormous numbers of sparrows and the wide 

 range over which they are found might at first seem 

 to make any attempts at their destruction hope- 

 less. But experiments in the destruction of these 



