OUR COMMON BIRDS 313 



as much as possible at times when young birds in the 

 neighborhood are learning to fly.i 



Next to the cat the English sparrow is responsible for 

 great decrease among certain of our native birds, espe- 

 cially of some of our most useful and desirable species 

 about the cities and towns. This is the obstacle that 

 blocks the way of younger children in doing effective 

 work for our native birds. They put out food in winter 

 and we ask : " What birds came for it ? " " English spar- 

 rows." They arrange drinking fountains. " Do the birds 

 come.''" "Yes, English sparrows." They build nest 

 boxes. " What birds do they have in them .' " " English 

 sparrows." If other birds come, the sparrows will mob 

 them. They will break up the nests and devour the eggs 

 of our robins, bluebirds, wrens, tree swallows and mar- 

 tins, song sparrows and vireos, and the children's work 

 results in increasing this "rufifian in feathers," "a bird 

 too pestiferous to mention." The sparrows begin nest- 

 ing in February or March, thus preempting available bird 

 houses before the native birds arrive, and rearing, as they 

 do, five or six broods a season, they increase with incred- 

 ible rapidity. It has been estimated that a pair in ten 

 years might produce 275,716,983,698 sparrows.^ What 



1 On a farm from which the cats were banished increase of birds was 

 so great the following year as to cause general remark among the neigh- 

 bors. Rats and mice, for destruction of which cats are sometimes kept, 

 can certainly be more effectively dealt with by intelligent use of poisons 

 and traps. Since not one of these vermin should be allowed on the 

 premises, this argument for the cat does not hold. 



2 " The English Sparrow in North America," Bulletin No. i. United States 

 Department of Agriculture, ought to be accessible for reference to every class 

 in nature study. The summing up of all the evidence is in part as follows : 

 " The English sparrow is a curse of such virulence that it ought to be 



