The Lancaster Farmer. 



Dr. S. S. SATHVON, Editor. 



LANCASTER, PA., FEBRUARY, 1882. 



Vol. XIV. No. 2. 



THE ENGLISH SPARROW. 



■•Auslialia iuiiiortcd Eiit;lisli sparrows to 

 kill worms, but it t'oiiiid tliat tlu' birdsan^ tlic 

 worst pest of tiu' two, and bouiiticsare offered 

 for tluiir destruction." 



[t appears tliat Australia has repeated the 

 blunder of America, in importing the " Eng- 

 lish sparrows to kill worms," and now both 

 Countries are "down on the sparrow," because 

 lie cannot be forced to habitually do violence 

 to the instincts of his nature. The ''English 

 s|)arrow" (Passer domesticus) is a Finch, be- 

 longing to the family Fhingillido':, and 

 therefore, by nature, is a granivorous bird, 

 and not strictly speaking, an insectivorous 

 one. It is not the fault of the sparrow that it 

 don't eat worms, any more than it is the fault 

 of the lion, because he don't "eat straw like 

 an ox." There was therefore no more wis- 

 dom in importing the fclnglish sparrow for the 

 purpose of destroying insects, than there 

 would have been in importing an English 

 pigeon to destroy mice. It is nothing to the 

 purpose to allege that they do occasionally, or 

 under certain extraneous circumstances, eat 

 insects, for that is only a neyad'fe quality at 

 best. If birds must be imported to destroy 

 insects, those of a positive charactive should 

 have been imiiorted. 



Tlie sparrow however, is sufticiently posi- 

 lirr in the direction his instincts lead him, 

 although as a uniform, or exclusive feeder on 

 insects he is netjative, and it is almost, if not 

 cpiile, impossible for him to be otherwise, 

 without doing violenci' to his own physical 

 organization. If he were purely insectiverous 

 he would not be eking out a precarious living 

 in our cold uncongenial clime during winter, 

 when insects are not obtainable by birds of 

 his mandibular conformation ; he would in- 

 stinctivi'ly migrate with other members of the 

 " leathered realm," who habitually feed on 

 insects. It .setms to us that this fad alone 

 iinulit to hti prima fftcia evidence that no con- 

 i lince can be placed on the English sparrow 

 ;i> a reliable remedy against the multiplication 

 of noxious insects. It is very probable that 

 he ma)/, and perhaps docs, appropriate some 

 insecls when he can get nothing else, or when 

 he is providing a repast for his young family, 

 in common with many other birds that are 

 not strictly insectiverous. Until young birds 

 are fully competent to [irovide for themselves, 

 the (larent birds usually furnish them such 

 r Mid as is best adapted to their juvenile con- 

 ilition, and in that respect they perhaps <Io 

 less violence to the laws of physiology than 

 Imnian jiarents do, in the rearing their own 

 prngeny. A tender .juicy worm is easier to 

 'liuest than a hard dry seed, especially during 

 I lie period o( helpless inactivity. The sparrow 

 Hun, being a granivorous bird, its normal 

 ('">d is jrain, or seeds, and when these are not 

 ' I'lainable it will appropriate that which 

 luarest approximates to arain, or seeds, and 

 li.iice the English sparrows beget themselves 

 to cities, towns, villages and hamlets, where 

 they can obtain bread-crumbs, undigested 

 grains in the droppings of animals — especially 



those of the hor.se — and in the absence of 

 these, the young buds of trees and shrubbery. 

 The streets of Lancaster city are full of them 

 both .Summer and Winter, whilst in the sur- 

 rounding country there are few or none of 

 them. Two summers ago a creeping vine on 

 a gable in East Orange street, contained lifty 

 or one hnnilred sparrows nests, and each one 

 of them was the cradle of a brood or two 

 during the season. Within, perhaps, a hun- 

 dred yards of it stood several elm trees, badly 

 infested by the "elm leaf beetle," (Galerucea 

 zanthomalorna.) There were tens of thousands 

 of th(se insi'cts in the ]iivv;i,ihe pupa, and the 

 imatji) states : but no one that ever watched 

 those birds ever saw them lly in the direction 

 of those infested elm trees, and this seemed 

 the more remarkable, inasmuch as the leaves, 

 the branches, the trunks, and the pavement 

 under ihe trees, were literally swarming with 

 the insects in all their stages of development ; 

 moreover, the birds were rearing their broods, 

 and, from their appearance alone, one would 

 suppose that if ever there was an insect that 

 might be expected to excite the appetite of a 

 small bird, it would have been these Elm-lcaf- 

 Beetlcs. But no, they were totally ignored. 

 Now, notwitlistanding all this, it is not our 

 intention to disparage the English sparrow ; 

 for, as we before intimated, he has his place in 

 the economy of nature, and those who have 

 forced him out of it must take the conse- 

 quences. He is doing all he can, under the 

 circumstances in which he is placed, and the 

 highest reasoning creature can do no more, 

 lie doubtless is doing some good in his own 

 peculiar way. If he does not destroy the 

 number of insects we think he should, he may 

 be gobbling up the seeds of many noxious 

 weeds, when he can get access to them, and 

 that is surely something. 



. But, in dealing with the sparrow we do not 

 think it would be wise to follow the example 

 of Australia, by ottering bounties for their de- 

 struction; for this might furnish the other 

 horn of the dilemma, as it did on another nota- 

 ble occasion in that same Australia. The gov- 

 ernment of New South Wales offered bounties 

 for the destruction of the owls and hawks of 

 that colony some years ago, on account of the 

 depredations they committed upon the poultry 

 of the farmers, through which they were 

 finally exterminated. But then the more de- 

 structive rodents increased most fearfully, 

 soon the country was overrun Ijy rats, mice, 

 rabbits, &c., and so great w;is the destruction 

 of the pasture fields, that a single woolgrower 

 or a single district lost fifteen hundred .sheep 

 by starvation. A similar event occurred 

 many years ago in .Scotland. There seem to 

 be certain balances in the economy of nature, 

 the equilbriuin of which, if destroyed, or 

 undue preponderance be given in either direc- 

 tion, results in disaster to the interests of the 

 aggressor ; and often too, in a manner that 

 was wholly uncontemplated. 



Wc cannot therefore say what effect the 

 total destruction of the sparrows would have 



upon the vegetable world, but there is room 

 for rational inference that it would not be a 

 favoiable one; because, imlircct inllueiicesiiiay 

 be so intensified as to produce more injury 

 than those that are direct. Although the 

 sparrows belong to the Finch family, yet 

 within that family there are groups, some of 

 which are more decidedly granivorous than 

 others. Although their natural proclivities 

 may lead in thai direction, still they are not 

 so exclusively seed-eating as the tn<e ./?/ic/if,?, 

 of which the canaries may be regarded as a 

 familiar type. The sparrows have the conical 

 bills of pure granivorous birds, but they are 

 more decidedly notched than most of the 

 other groups of the family. We therefore 

 not only may in/cr that they capture insects— 

 es|)ecially during the breeding sea.son— but 

 they have often been seen in the very act of 

 doing so : and, if each bird captures and killg 

 a single female insect in the spring before she 

 has deposited her eggs, the benefit resulting 

 from it may be incalculable. The destruction 

 of a few buds of fruit trees in early spring, is 

 surely not to be compared with the general 

 interest of the crop ; and perhaps such a con- 

 tingency could be obviated by furnishing the 

 birds with neces.sary food. 



We have been portraying the English spar- 

 row as he aciually is, and not as people may 

 think he o/(;//(« to be. From his &(f(<i(.s in the 

 classified arrangement of the feathered tribes, 

 we freely confess that we are not at all dis- 

 ai)p linted in him. When the wag, dressed in 

 an ox's hide appeared before Baron Cuvier, in 

 order to frighten him, he eiKpiired what he 

 wanted ; and when the wag replied in a 

 se[nilchral tone — "I want to eat you," the 

 Baron significantly replied, in an unconcerned 

 manner—" Hoofs, horns, IIerbiverou.i. You 

 can't do it.'" We knew of a cow that ate the 

 frill of a woman's sunbonnet ; and we also 

 knew of a cat that ate jiickles, but those arti- 

 cles were not their normal food of course. 

 Nor can it be said that they habitually fed on 

 that kind of provender. Under similar cir- 

 cumstances, aided by domestication, sjiarrows 

 are occasionally seen cai)tiiriiig and eating in- 

 sects, but it can hardly be regarded as a 

 normal characteristic. 



On the whole then, from what we know of 

 the English sparrow through local experience, 

 and the general tone of the public press, we 

 have'comniitted a blunderin introducing it into 

 the United .States for the pur|iose of destroy- 

 ing our surplusage of insects ; and, whatever 

 we intend to ultimately "do about it," it is 

 perhaps well that the ma.ssps of the people 

 should have some knowledge of what he is 

 and how he lives. lie is a shrewd, pugna- 

 cious and iH'rseveriiig little elf, and 'tis a 

 pity he should have gained such a " disreputa- 

 ble reputation." 



We would not recommend, therefore, that 

 a government bounly .should Ik; offered for his 

 head, when a simple repeal, or suspension of 

 the law for his protection, and his elevation to 

 the status of a "game bird," would as effec- 



