Art. XI.— On the Present 8tatiis of Passer cloniestieus 

 in America, with Special Reference to the ^Vestern 

 States and Territories. 



By Dr. Elliott Coues, IT. S. A. 



Now that the enormous increase and rapid dispersion of the Euro- 

 IDean House Sparrow in America have resulted in the ai)i)earance of 

 this objectionable bird iu various portions of the Western States and 

 Territories, it is time to consider what means may be taken to check 

 its westward extension ; for the agriculturists of that portion of our 

 country have already enough to do to contend with the grasshopper 

 scourge without having to guard their crops against a plague only less 

 formidable and imminent. Should the noxious birds become as numer- 

 ous and as widely diffused in the West as they are already in the 

 thickly-settled portions of the United States, thej would there prove even 

 more destructive to the crops than they are known to be in the East. 

 For here they still live for the most part in cities, towns, and "\illages, 

 where they derive their subsistence chiefly from street-garbage, espe- 

 cially horse-manure; but in the West, where such supi^lies are more 

 limited, these granivorous birds would at once and contiuually prey 

 upon the crops. I am not informed to what extent they may have mul- 

 tiplied already in some of the places, as at Salt Lake City, to which they 

 have been transported, and where they have obtaiued a foothold ; but 

 it may not be too late, if ^^gorous measures are taken at once, to stamp 

 out the plague. The strongholds of the birds are few, comparatively 

 speaking, and isolated to such a degree that the eradication of the 

 birds from that -part of the United States may not be now absolutely 

 impracticable, as unfortunately seems to be the case in the East. The 

 Great Plains offer a natural barrier to the westward progress of the 

 birds from the Mississippi; and if pains be taken to destroy the advance 

 guard as fast as they move westward, the evils now suffered in the East 

 may be long delayed or even avoided. In most parts of the West 

 where the Sparrows have appeared, it is believed that they have been 

 imported, not that they reached these spots by spontaneous migration 

 or natiu'al dispersion. If this be the case, indeed, it may not be a 

 matter of the greatest difficulty to destroy them, root and branch, iu 

 the comparatively few places in which they have already become natu- 

 ralized. Should this be done, and laws be passed prohibiting the intro- 

 duction of the birds into the Western States and Territories, iimuuiiity 

 from invasion might be secured for a practically unlimited period. To 



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