THE OOLOGIST. 



151 



not going too far, and whether or not the 

 English Sparrow is a wholly bad bird. 



Some years ago I lived in a town in 

 Western New York, not far from Rochester. 

 In my garden was a tine peach-tree, full of 

 blossoms. As I lived in the ouskirts of the 

 town, a Sparrow at that time seldom had 

 been seen in the garden. 



One day a neighbor not two blocks away 

 said to me: "The English Sparrows are 

 destroying all the peach blossoms! Smith 

 and his boys are shooting all that come in 

 his yard. But I won't fight the birds. As 

 I can afford it, I prefer to buy my peaches. 



"Smith and his boys" saved the blossoms 

 but barely got fifty peaches from a dozen 

 trees and those were mostly too worny to 

 be used. My tree, untouched by the 

 "blossom destroyers, " had less than a dozen 

 peaches, and they were wormy ; while the 

 friend who allowed the English Sparrows to 

 work their own sweet will had about a half 

 bushel of fair-cheeked, full-size, beautiful 

 peaches. 



At the time when the blossoms were 

 covering the trees, I had a newspaper con- 

 troversy (through a Geneva journal) with a 

 Rochester fruit grower on the same subject, 

 for I had examined hundreds of blossoms 

 and found the germ of some insect in most 

 of them. I insisted then, and still do insist, 

 that the Sparrows destroyed only such 

 blossoms as not only would have destroyed 

 the fruit for that year, but for many sub- 

 sequent years. There are portions cf 

 Illinois in which farmers are unable to 

 raise wheat on account of the insect known 

 as the weevil. But a great outcry is made 

 that the English Sparrow destroys wheat! 

 How many have made any examination of 

 what was being destroyed in order to tell 

 positively whether the wheat was sound or 

 not ? Now, sons of farmers, you may help 

 settle the question. It is not an unknight- 

 ly deed to defend the character of an 

 unpopular bird. 



Put down in a clear space one peck of 

 sound wheat ; then ten feet away put down 

 one peck of wheat that is full of weevil: 

 then stand back and wait and just notice 

 what the Sparrows do. 



I believe that you will find that invari- 

 ably the diseased wheat will be eaten first. 

 If the birds are very hungry they may after- 

 wards take the good wheat. But even boys 

 eat as long as they are hungry. 



For centuries the crow, too has been shot 

 at, destroyed and abused by men ; and to-day 

 how few know — or will believe the good 

 that crows do in agriculture. I refuse to 

 let anyone disturb crows when they settle 

 on my newly-planted corn-fields, and my 

 neighbors, here in Southern Maryland, 

 have to plant far more than I do. I do not 



dispute that the crows take some toll for 

 for destroying the cut- worms; but I think 

 them entitled to as much as they take. 



I took a neighbor through his own corn- 

 field and offered him a dollar for every ear 

 of corn (not yet fully ripe) which had been 

 partially eaten by the crows but which did 

 not show traces of the cut-worm. He 

 could not find one from which the crow had 

 not first taken the worm. In no case could 

 a sound ear be found that had been dis- 

 turbed by the crows. Still the same man 

 continues to shoot them. 



Entomology and ornithology, in their prac- 

 tical application, are branches of agriculture, 

 and there is need of much post-graduate 

 study in the gardens and fields. These 

 Sciences cannot be fully learned in the 

 schools. 



—April Wide Awake. 



Locating a Birds' Nest. 



Were you ever disappointed in trying to 

 find a bird's nest? even when you were al- 

 most certain that you just saw the bird 

 leave its eggs. 



Here is an incident which shows that one 

 can be too hasty, even in locating a bird's 

 nest. A company of school boys were stand- 

 ing on the sandy shore of a small island in 

 the Lehigh River, when a bird fluttered from 

 under a bush and flew out over the water. 

 It was at once recognized as a Whip-poor- 

 will. As the bird flew along the shore for a 

 short distance, all, except one of the boys, 

 agreed that it was going to its nest and con- 

 cluded to follow it. They did so — followed 

 it around the fifty acre island, and finally 

 came back to the one non-concurring boy. 

 He said that he thought the bird was just 

 leaving its nest instead of just returning to 

 it and that his belief was strengthened by 

 our reappearing without having discovered 

 the nest. Knowing something of the habits 

 of the bird, he searched the shore under the 

 bushes, and was soon rewarded by finding 

 two eggs lying on the bare ground. 



Thus we "jumped to a conclusion" and 

 got left. The other fellow did not decide 

 so suddenly and he got — the eggs. 



H. E. P., Allentown, Pa. 



