March 20, 1S95. 



Garden and Forest. 



113 



square miles in the United States and Canada, and in seven 

 years more it liad spread over more tlian a million square 

 miles, and, no doubt, at the present time it can be found in 

 every state and territory in the Union, while it has increased 

 the extent of its habitat in tjie states where a few years ago it 

 only existed in isolated colonies. 



The structure of the sparrow's bill shows that it is essentially 

 granivorous, and yet at times it destroys many insects. Just 

 how much good is done by the bird m this way can only be 

 found by examining large nutnl)ers of their stomachs. Inves- 

 tigation of this sort proves that the sparrow is a miserable 

 failure as an insect destroyer. It never makes a practice of 

 catching insects except to feed its young, and these insects are 

 usually of those species which are most easily secured, and are 

 found where the sparrow most commonly resorts. Only m 

 exceptional cases has it ever made any inroads into the ranks 

 of insect pests. It is even open to question whether it de- 

 stroyed any of the Eugonia moths in New York, for which it 

 was originally imported. Young sparrows eat many more 

 insects than adult birds, and yet insects are not necessary for 

 their healthful existence, and they can be reared exclusively 

 on a vegetable diet. Out of 522 dissections, including young 

 and old, made by the United States Department of Agricul- 

 ture, the presence of insects was shown in only ninety-two, or 

 seventeen and six-tenths per cent., of the stomachs examined, 

 while the actual proportion of insect food to other food did not 

 exceed two per cent. Besides this, the greater portion of the 

 insect food taken by these sparrows consisted of species which 

 are either neutral or directly beneficial. A single yellow- 

 billed cuckoo was found to have destroyed 250 fall web- 

 worms besides other insects, and all of them injurious, a bulk 

 equal to the entire amount of insect food in all the 522 sparrows 

 examined. In the city of Albany during 1885 the caterpillars of 

 the white-marked tussock moth were so abundant that they 

 were seen crawling everywhere, even over the boxes thatshel- 

 tered the sparrows, and yet the birds were never known to 

 disturb the insects. On the contrary, by driving away other 

 birds which naturally destroyed them, the sparrows fostered 

 the increase of the pest. These and other species of injurious 

 insects have thus increased with alarming rapidity in localities 

 where the cause was evidently the protection accorded by the 

 presence of the sparrow. 



The sparrow feeds to some extent upon the seeds of weeds, 

 but this benefit is very slight, since the weeds grow where the 

 destruction of their seeds is of little importance. Grain and 

 the seeds of grasses are regularly sought by them, and they 

 do much more injury than is generally imagined. Wheat is 

 their favorite grain, and the damage done to this alone amounts 

 to one-quarter of the whole crop. They usually attack this as 

 soon as the kernels mature, but even when lelt in shock or 

 stack it is still subject to depredation, for the sparrows devour 

 all the grain in the exposed sheaves. To vary their bill of fare 

 they also attack grapes, cherries, apples, pears and small 

 fruits and vegetables, and the damage done to these crops is 

 always serious. Ornamental vines, evergreen trees and hedges 

 are subject to serious injury when the birds select them for a 

 nesting-place. A sparrow has been known to strip the buds 

 land blossoms from the entire branches of fruit and ornamental 

 trees, nibbling off many times more than it could possibly 

 eat, apparently for amusement, and the dissection of birds shot 

 while thus engaged failed to disclose the presenceof any food, 

 excepting the buds and portions of the blossoms. It may be 

 readily seen, therefore, that the damage to fruit trees must be 

 considerable, and much of the injury usually attributed to other 

 causes can probably be traced to this source. 



The sparrow is naturally pugnacious and he persecutes 

 many native birds, assailingthe chippingsparrow in flocks, and 

 even larger birds when they are rendered by accident defense- 

 less, pursuing them furiously until they are dead. They have 

 been knov.'n to attack young robins in their nests, and even 

 domestic pigeons and common fowls are molested for the 

 purpose of robbing them of their food. The scarcity of many 

 of our native liirds about our dwellings is to a great extent 

 owing to their quarrelsome dispositions. They seem abso- 

 lutely fearless and will attack a blue jay or a crow, and by the 

 force of numbers compel even these to retreat. But such 

 birds as associate naturally with man are the greatest sufferers. 

 Among these the blue birds, the purple martin, the robin, the 

 house wren and several swallows are most frequently and 

 seriously disturbed, because their nesting-places are naturally 

 coveted by thesparrow, and many other birds are driven from 

 the vicinity of human dwellings where they naturally con- 

 gregate. 



The sparrow has manifestly few good qualities, and all argu- 

 ments urged in its defense have been abandoned one by one. 



The evidence against its character is conclusive : it is a para- 

 site, and its extermination would be a desirable thing. 

 The difficulties in the way of this, however, seem insurmount- 

 able. Bounties offered are practically useless, since so insig- 

 nificant a number are killed that their loss has no apparent 

 effect on the steady increase. An estimate based on the lowest 

 bounty which would produce any desired result shows that to 

 exterminate the species in Ohio alone would cost the state two 

 and a quarter millions of dollars, and even this would not avail 

 unless the adjoining states pursued a similar course. Since 

 the total extirpation of the pest seems impracticable, this ar- 

 ticle has been prepared simply to show the true character of 

 the bird and to set forth the necessity of some action looking 

 toward the restriction of its unlimited nmltiplication on this 

 continent. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



Phajus Bernaysii. — This is the handsomest of the many 

 forms of Phajus which botanically are only varieties of 

 P. grandifolius, but vv'hich for horticultural purposes are 

 accorded specific rank. It is flowering now at Kew for 

 the first time, having been received two years ago from 

 Fiji as "a distinct, probably new, Phajus, which I found 

 in the woods here, and which has white flowers." In gen- 

 eral characters it resembles typical P. grandifolius, the 

 pseudo-bulbs being two inches in diameter, the plicated 

 bright green leaves two and a half feet long and four inches 

 wide, the erect scapes three and a half feet high, with 

 sheathing bracts four inches apart and a dozen or more 

 flowers in a compact raceme at the top. Each flower is 

 four inches across, the sepals and petals equal in size, pure 

 white outside, pale sulphur-yellow inside, the folded lip 

 being white, with a faint tinge of yellow inside. The 

 plant grows freely under stove treatment and potted in 

 loose loam. There is a figure in the Bolanical Magazine, 

 1873, t. 6033, of a plant imported from Queensland by 

 Messrs. Veitch & Sons, and named in compliment to Mr. 

 Bernays, of the Queensland Acclimatization Society. This 

 plant is darker in color than that now in flower at Kew, 

 and it is said to be a native of Queensland. In their Orchid 

 Manual, part vi., page 11, Messrs. Veitch state that the 

 plant flowered by them "is of little value as a horticultural 

 plant on account of the flowers being often self-fertilizing 

 before they e.xpand, and thence lasting but a short time in 

 perfection.'' All the flowers on the plant now in bloom at 

 Kew are perfect in form, and the oldest flower has been 

 expanded a week, and is still as fresh as the flower which 

 opened to-day. In color it is quite distinct and delicately 

 beautiful in the pale sulphur or primrose-yellow of the 

 inner face of the segments. The type of P. grandifolius is 

 not generally popular because its flowers are dull in color, 

 a character which certainly does not belong to P. Bernaysii. 



Alberta magna. — A second plant of this south African 

 Rubiaceous plant is now flowering in a greenhouse at 

 Kew, and from it a picture has been prepared which will 

 shortly be published in the Botanical Magazine. When calling 

 attention to it in my letter of a few weeks ago I omitted to 

 mention that, in addition to the brilliant red color of its 

 terminal panicles of flowers, it has a second, and probably 

 more lasting, attraction in its leaf-like caly.x-lobes, which 

 are spalhulate in form, an inch long and colored bright 

 red. When in flower the caly.x-lobes are small and of 

 uniform size, but after the flowers have faded one or two of 

 the four caly.x-lobes grow, and apparently assume as bright 

 a color as the flQ_wers. This character is not peculiar to 

 Alberta, but may be seen in the allied genera, Mussoenda 

 and Howardia. The Alberta is a handsome evergreen 

 shrub. In flower it suggests Embothrium coccineum. 



Cactus vs. Mamillaria. — If we adopt the vi'estern pro- 

 posal to substitute the name Cactus for IMamillaria, thereby 

 limiting the use of the term now employed for the whole order 

 to a single genus of that order, we shall, in consequence, be 

 forced to invent a new family name. The term Cactus, as 

 now used, has the same general meaning as have those of 



