General F. E. Spinner. 



17 



practice. It is only in places like New York that my 

 heart warms to the ' marauder. ' Honestly, now, 

 don't you relent when he flies down by your side, 

 when all Broadway is hurrying by ? You may think 

 me sentimental, but I own that I am glad to see him 

 there, and I don't want to poison him at all." Per- 

 haps this is the true state of the case. The city 

 sparrow is a genteel loafer, while his country cousins 

 are unmitigated curses. 



I wonder have you a garden, and have you tried 

 to grow a bed of early peas? If you have, you have 

 probably noticed that the rascals have some way of 

 communicating the fact to all their fellows for miles 

 around, and soon you will find that they had the 

 generosity to leave the empty pods for your share of 

 the crop. 



I have been informed that some States have 

 passed laws making it a penal offense to harbor these 

 marauding tramps. I confess that I favor such a 

 law. 



I will not gainsay your estimate of man, that he is 

 dirty, quarrelsome and thievish, for he is ranked as 

 the chief brute of creation. But then, woman be- 



longs to the same species, and she is the man's- 

 mother. 



The doves that you mention, while they are not 

 quarrelsome, are, so far as filthiness and thievishness 

 are concerned, even worse than the English sparrow. 

 I have known much sickness, and even death, to 

 have occurred, in consequence of the use of rain 

 water, shed from roofs that had been soiled by these 

 unclean birds. 



You say that the English attribute their good crops 

 to the presence of numerous sparrows. Are you 

 sure these English people were not quizzing you: 

 that instead of the crops of the farms, did they not 

 mean that the crops of the sparrows were so heavy ? 



You say God made these sparrows for a purpose ; 

 now, while I will not dispute your proposition, I beg- 

 to remind you that the same may be said of skunks, 

 wolves, rattlesnakes, scorpions, fleas, mosquitoes, 

 and thousands of other animated nuisances. 

 Very respectfully yours, 



F. E. Spinner. 

 Lydia L. A. Very, 



154 Federal Street, Salem, Mass. 



WE are grati- 

 fied at being 

 able to present the 

 readers of tlie Au- 

 dubon witli a por- 

 trait of "the watch 

 dog of the Treas- 

 ury." General Spin- 

 ner well deserves a 

 niche in the Audu- 



bon temple, for in 

 spite of his decided 

 attitude toward that 

 debatable bird, and 

 bone of contentioa 

 — the English spar- 

 row — he is a very- 

 warm supporter of 

 the Audubon move- 

 ment. 



