No. 20.] THE BIRDS OF CONNECTICUT. 321 



" The English Sparrow likewise harbors and is the host of 

 perhaps the most important of all external parasites of our 

 native song birds, and likewise of our tamed cage birds, the bird 

 mite, Dermanyssus avium De Geer." 



The English Sparrow multiplies so rapidly (having been 

 known to raise six broods in a year) that our native birds could 

 not compete with it were they equally pugnacious and capable 

 like it of remaining in this region all the year. " It is a hardy, 

 prolific, and aggressive bird, possessed of much intelligence and 

 more than ordinary cunning. It is domestic and gregarious in 

 habit, and takes advantage of the protection afforded by prox- 

 imity to man, thus escaping nearly all the enemies which check the 

 increase of our native birds. Moreover, for ma:ny yedrs it was 

 looked upon with favor, and both food and shelter were provided 

 for it. 



" Its fecundity is amazing ; and, from the testimony submitted, 

 it is evident that it is no unusual thing for a single pair, in the 

 latitude of New York or further south, to rear twenty or thirty 

 young in the course of a year. Assuming the annual product 

 of a pair to be twenty-four young, of which half are females and 

 half males, and assuming further, for the sake of computation, 

 that all live, together with their offspring, it will be seen that in 

 ten years the progeny of a single pair would be 275, 716, 983, 

 698." (Barrows, " English Sparrow in North America.") 



With such a record, the only question left is what measures 

 can best be taken against it. " In the city of Boston, during 1899, 

 a crusade was inaugurated through the efforts of the American 

 Society of Bird Restorers. From March 13 to April 5, six men 

 were employed in the Common and Public Garden destroying the 

 nests and eggs. Five thousand nesting holes were plugged up, 

 4,000 nests destroyed, and 1,000 eggs broken, but no birds were 

 killed. It is claimed that nearly half of the sparrows which 

 normally breed on the Common and Public Garden were driven 

 away. In May only 250 to 300 pairs of sparrows were found, 

 while the number of pairs counted in the parks before the sparrow 

 war began amounted to 500. 



" Much is always to be learned from an experiment of this 

 kind, and other cities should profit by Boston's experience. There 

 is reason to believe, however, that the present rapid supplanting 

 21 



