The Zoologist — September, 1868. 1375 



built in a small cypress tree and attached to the twigs in a similar manner to that of 

 the reed warbler to the stems of the reeds: the materials were rather different, and it 

 was not so deep. The parent birds strongly resembled the reed warbler, but struck me 

 as being taller on the leg, and altogether a longer and slenderer bird. I sent them 

 without note or comment to Mr. Cook, the birdstuffer, at Derby, who is a very 

 intelligent and observant man, and was for some years in Mr. Leadbeater's establish- 

 ment. I at once received a letter from him, requesting me to tell him what species of 

 warbler I considered the species to be, as he had never seen or stuffed any like them 

 before. " I have stuffed," he said, " scores of reed warblers, but never any like these." 

 As soon as Mr. Cook returned the case containing the birds and nest I took it to 

 London, and showed them to my kind and excellent friend Mr. Gould. He examined 

 them with much care and interest, but said he could not consider them to be anything 

 but the reed warbler. He told me he had frequently taken the nest of this bird at 

 some distance from water. Since theu I have not thought much about the matter. 

 Still I cannot but think that it is a matter deserving much closer study and investiga- 

 tion than have ever yet been bestowed upon it — whether we have not two closely 

 allied species confounded under the name of reed warbler. There are two very 

 interesting notes by Mr. Robert Mitford, of Hampstead (Zool. 9109 and 9847), which 

 tend most strongly to confirm this suspicion, and I have often looked for something 

 more on this interesting subject from Mr. Mitford's pen. My friend Dr. Bree, in his 

 'Birds of Europe not observed in the British Isles,' describes a closely-allied species, 

 Sylvia palustris, Bechslein, in words which precisely tally with the observations made 

 on the birds which frequent my garden. The male bird immediately took the place of 

 the female on the nest when she had been shot. I believe, however, that it is a habit 

 in several of the Sylviadae for the male and female bird to sit alternately upon the 

 eggs. I know that this is the case with the blackcap. During the breeding-season 

 on warm nights the male bird of my warbler-sings most sweetly the greater part of the 

 night.—//. Harpur Crewe; Rectory, Drayton-Beauchamp, Tring, August 7, 1868. 



English Sparrows in America. — I think the following newspaper paragraph will 

 be interesting to some of the readers of the ' Zoologist: '— " In the spring of 1866 four 

 pairs of English sparrows came to the Union-square Park, New York, and there built. 

 Three pairs occupied the trees, one ejected a wren from her little house, the only bird- 

 house then in the square, and took possession ; a fifth built in the ivy of Dr. Cheever's 

 church, facing the square. The industry of these little fellows in devouring the 

 measuring worm (so great a nuisance that most persons avoided passing through the 

 park, preferring to go round during their occupancy; and so numerous were they that 

 they did not leave a leaf on any tree except the Ailanthus) were such that boxes were 

 provided on almost all the trees for them. They were very prolific, those hatched in the 

 spring rearing a brood in the autumn, and the old pair rearing four or five broods. In 

 one year they increased from five pairs to a flock of seventy, and they are now estimated 

 at 600. Last summer a reward of one dollar a-head was offered for worms, but the 

 birds had eateu the last one: they also ate moths, grasshoppers and many other 

 insects. These birds have extended about forty miles in every direction. The 

 estimate that they destroy in Europe one half-million bushels of grain was probably 

 correct;. but how much more or less would the insects they devour destroy? The 

 question is, simply, which is the greater evil, worm or bird, and which most readily 

 controlled." When I was in America, some few years since, I noticed in many 



