22 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 
and Jays are such enemies of better-behaved birds, that one 
may look unmoved upon their sable plumes or sky-blue 
wings, even on a woman’s hat. The Shrikes (Zaniid@) are 
also cruel butchers of small song birds; but they are so 
largely insectivorous that in striking a balance of their good 
and evil deeds the account would probably be squared. The 
Cowbird (Molothrus ater) is a peculiarly insidious foe ‘to many 
of our most useful insect-eating song birds. The old-world 
Sparrow (Passer domesticus), which we fatuously imported a 
few years ago, for expected services as an alleged insecticide, 
though fitted for that réle neither by nature nor by art, is 
another enemy, by no means insidious, but offensively ag- 
gressive, obtrusively turbulent, ubiquitously noisy, dirty, and 
a nuisance—the only instance of total depravity in the bird- 
world, the only sinner beyond hope of redemption, the only 
outlaw upon whose scalp our lawmakers should set a price. 
Millions of dollars would not pay for the damage annually 
done by the Sparrow, both directly, in destruction of crops, 
and indirectly, by interfering with the good offices of in- 
sectivorous native birds. 
The foregoing are the chief if not the only cases which we 
find on the wrong side of the ledger in consequence of harm 
done to distinctively useful birds, and thus indirectly to 
man, Let us look at some exemplary damages we may seek 
to recover for our direct injuries. 
Among birds which feed upon cereals, and therefore destroy 
crops to a greater or lesser extent, are the related families 
Corvide and Icteridz. In the former, the Crow is the most 
conspicuous—that much-abused bird, whose case has so 
long been in litigation—that astute, many-sided, alternately 
lustrous and shady character, whose activities have given us 
a household word—‘“ scarecrow.” The brief in this case 
would seem to be this: the Crow is as omnivorous as any 
bird can be; he is equally insectivorous and granivorous ; he 
does at least as much good as harm; the verdict is “not 
proven ;” he may be given the benefit of the doubt, and 
