ENGLISH SPARROW. 71 



young in boxes in sight of his windows. The following year about one-half disappeared, and last year not 

 one of these nine pairs of native birds had a representative left within this small area. Not that all the 

 boxes were occupied by the Sparrows, but they claimed possession of all, and by force of numbers retained 

 it. In most cases the former occupants, finding their homes already in the possession of their enemies, 

 appeared to make no struggle to regain them, a reconnaissance of the field apparently satisfying them of the 

 hopelessness of any such attempt; in other cases they were not given up without long and hard-fought 

 battles. On inquiry he found that similar incidents have been observed in neighboring parts of Cambridge. 

 Besides this, instances of uncalled-for aggression had come to his notice, one of which he himself had observed. 

 Last year a colony of Sparrows, not content with three times as many boxes as they had use for— to gain 

 possession of which they had dispossessed Wrens and Swallows — attacked a pair of Robins that very 

 unwisely, as it proved, had chosen a nesting site in an elm close to this pugnacious colony, by which they 

 w^ere so persistently harassed that they had to abandon their completed nest and its, to them, precious contents.' 



"One error mto which many observers who are not ornithologists have fallen lies 

 in the failure to discriminate between the abundance of birds in towns and cities in time 

 of migration and in the breeding season. Thus such a visitor to the national capital 

 during the first week in April, 1887, would have been struck at once with the number 

 of Robins in all the parks, and might have come to the hasty conclusion that, therefore, 

 the English Sparrow had no serious influence on them. 



"There were undoubtedly many thousands of Robins in the city of Washington at 

 that time. On the grass ground in front of the Smithsonian Institution, on the lawns 

 of the Capitol, and in many of the other parks, hundreds were in sight at once, and 

 they seldom appeared to be molested by the Sparrows. But no sooner had these 

 migrating flocks passed northward and the intending settlers arrived in smaller num- 

 bers firom the South than the Sparrows began to show their natural disposition, and, 

 as a result, the Robins which remained and nested in the beautiful parks, numbering 

 hundreds of acres, probably did not average one pair to every ten acres of suitable ground. 



"One other egregious blunder, for which there is still less excuse, is the claim so 

 often put forward that in other countries, notably in Engl&nd and Germany, the Spar- 

 rows live in peace with all birds, whereas if they, were the terrible foes represented they 

 would have expelled all these birds long ago. In general, such statements may be set 

 down at once as totally untrue as regards the facts. The Sparrow in Europe is very 

 much the same bird as in the United States, certainly no better. And wherever there is 

 any marked difference in habits, such a difference is usually attributable to the fact that 

 the conditions of existence are entirely unlike." 



In many parts of Europe bounties have been paid on the Sparrow from time to 

 time for centxiries, and to-day in many sections of England the farmers are fighting 

 this pest as bitterly as in any section of the New World. If any one doubts that the 

 Sparrow attacks other birds in Europe, let him turn to the evidence given before the 

 select committee of the British Parliament in 1873, and read the statements which 

 support the testimony of Col. Champion Russell with regard to the relations of the 

 Sparrow and the Martin. His conclusion is, 'If people will neither protect the Martins 

 from the Sparrows nor let them build near their doors and windows for protection, we 

 shall lose these beautiful and most useful birds ; indeed, we are losing them fast. Unlike 

 most other birds, they will not make their nests far from our dwelhngs ; if not allowed 

 to build there, they disappear.' 



If we want to enjoy the presence of our beautiful native songbirds in the larger 



