The English Sparrow 





mm 



_**~<* ' 



The Sparrow, by the way, although his entrance into southern Cali- 

 fornia was so belated, has found an impregnable fortress in the Washing- 

 ton Palm, Neowashingtonia filifera (Wendt) Sudworth. Wherever this 

 stately savage displays 

 his luxuriant mane, there 

 the English Sparrow 

 foregathers with his 

 mates ad infinitum et ad 

 nauseam. So far as 

 southern California is 

 concerned, the "prob- 

 lem of the English Spar- 

 row" will be the problem 

 of persuading the proud 

 owners of Washington 

 Palms to subject their 

 favorites to tonsorial 

 care. 



If there are those 

 who still require evi- 

 dence that the English 

 Sparrow is an undesir- 

 able alien, I beg to sub- 

 mit for their considera- 

 tion the following speci- 

 fic charges, each con- 

 firmed by experience no less than by authority. 



1. The English Sparrow destroys fruits, berries, grains, buds, gar- 

 den-seeds, and tender shoots. To take up a single item: The total 

 economic loss to the nation through the consumption of grain in the shock 

 is enormous. A hundred million bushels would probably be a low esti- 

 mate. 



2. The bird destroys as many beneficial insects as it does injurious, 

 so it can claim no exemption because of its occasional and unquestioned 

 services as an insect destroyer. 



3. It is a frequent and almost inevitable disseminator of disease, 

 through its use of poultry litter and other trash in nest-building. 



4. It harbors and disseminates chicken-lice (Dermanyssus gallince, 

 Redi), as well as bird-lice (D. avium De Geer). An able investigator, 

 Ewing, 1 found 18,000 of these poultry mites in a single nest of this Spar- 

 row. This is a fatal offense in the eyes of poultry raisers. 



Taken in San Francisco 



THE TEDIOUS ALIEN 



Photo by the A uihor 



1 Auk, Vol. XXVIII., July, 1911, p. 338 



226 



