AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY 131 



Odin, Illinois. 

 In reference to the English Sparrow question will say I grow early 

 cabbage and the English Sparrow is a great help in ridding them of the 

 little green cabbage worm. The Sparrows will light on the plant or on 

 the ground and look them over carefully and if a worm is in sight they 

 pick it off and eat it. This is all the good I know of the bird doing. 



C. B. Vandercook. 



Macedon, N. Y. 

 As to the English Sparrow these points are in their favor, they are 

 great scavengers — if they eat grain they also destroy weed seeds, and 

 I have seen them catch insects, also they stay with us in the winter. I 

 think we might tolerate, and even love them, if they did not multiply 

 at such a great rate as to drive out our native birds. 



Bayard Biddlecom. 

 [The defense rests its case here, having submitted all its evidence. 

 We will now hear what the prosecution has to testify.] 



Columbia, Pa. 

 I have made a special study of this bird for the past ten years with 

 reference to their relations with other birds and with agriculture. I 

 find that, in between three and four thousand stomachs examined by 

 me, about eighty-five per cent of contents was of a vegetable character. 

 The greatest damage done by this bird is done to the buds of fruit 

 trees in the winter and spring, when large quantities enter their bill of 

 fare. In the summer they live on grain (wheat) on which they alight, 

 eating the grains and flapping their wings shower the remainder on the 

 ground. I am no friend of the bird and think the small good they do 

 far from balances the harm. J. Jay Wisler. 



Floral Park, N. Y. 

 At Floral Park the English Sparrows destroy about one-half of all 

 our wild birds nests. It is usually done by picking holes in the eggs, 

 sometimes by throwing them out of the nest. They are often caught 

 in the act, and there is no mistake about it. Birds that suffer from 

 them are Robins, Chipping and Song Sparrows, Yellow Warblers, Cat- 

 birds, Orioles and Brown Thrashers. John Lewis Childs. 



Mayfield, Ky. 

 From my knowledge of the English Sparrow I am bound to brand 

 him a "nuisance." Two neighbors, market gardeners, tell me that the 

 English Sparrows destroy a great many worms found on the cabbage. 

 This is the only credit for this bird that I have heard of or seen in this 

 section. I see him as a vegetarian. He feeds in the streets on corn, 

 oats and other grains dropped there by stock, and at the kitchen door 

 on bread crumbs, etc., fed to poultry. I can not mature sunflower seed 

 for him, and I saw two acres of sorghum corn stripped of all seed 

 only last fall. Briefly put they say to all other birds, it matters not 

 how useful, beautiful or sweetly they sing: "Get off the earth you are 

 in my way." C. W. Wilson. 



