LITERARY NOTICES. 



851 



appeal can act otherwise than in strict sub- 

 ordination to it. In application to man, Mr. 

 Wallace finds natural selection ample to the 

 development of his physical structure, but 

 failing to account for his moral and intel- 

 lectual faculties. 



The English Sparrow in North America, 

 especially in its relations to agri- 

 CULTURE. Prepared under the Direction 

 of Dr. C. Hart Merriman, Ornithologist, 

 by Walter B. Barrows, Assistant Or- 

 nithologist. Washington : Government 

 Printing-Office. Pp. 405. 



This monograph is published as " Bul- 

 letin No. 1 " of the " Division of Economic 

 Ornithology and Mammalogy " of the De- 

 partment of Agriculture, and is designed to 

 communicate the evidence from first hands 

 respecting the character of the English 

 sparrow, and its desirability or otherwise as 

 a denizen of our own country. We have 

 persecuted the hawk and the owl and the 

 crow with guns and bounties and poison. 

 Farmers' boys have lain in wait to shoot the 

 robins and cat-birds that came to their 

 cherry-trees. The ladies of the civilized 

 world have thousands of agents in all coun- 

 tries, the United States included, hunting 

 birds to obtain the wherewithal they may 

 decorate their hats. One of our choicest 

 amusements is to hunt for the mere sake of 

 killing ; and an amateur sportsman boasted 

 the other day in a newspaper of having 

 killed a thousand birds in a week, which, 

 having no use for them, he gave to the 

 farmers on whose land he poached. The 

 first impulse on seeing a strange bird is to 

 kill it. At last, after the birds had been 

 ' exterminated in our large cities and made 

 rare in the country at large, sparrows were 

 introduced as a partial but certainly in- 

 adequate and unsatisfactory remedy for 

 the mischief that had been done by rashly 

 disturbing the balance of nature. As soon 

 as they became numerous they were accused 

 of driving useful birds away. There are un- 

 questionably too many of them, and they 

 multiply too fast ; they are quarrelsome 

 and tyrannical; and they are inefficient 

 insect-destroyers as compared with the spe- 

 cies we have allowed to be nearly extermi- 

 nated. Whether or not they assist man in 

 driving other birds away is a question of 

 fact. The present report contains answers 



from thirty-three hundred persons in the 

 country at large respecting the character 

 and habits of the sparrow. The answers, 

 mostly dated in 1886, represent all sorts 

 of views, and are often contradictory. There 

 is no means of estimating the relative 

 value of the testimonies. The witnesses 

 against the sparrow preponderate in num- 

 bers; but among those in its favor many 

 are known to be accurate and intelligent 

 observers. Mr. Nicholas Pike, who intro- 

 duced them, an accomplished naturalist, 

 is sure that they exterminated the measur- 

 ing-worm from the trees of Brooklyn ; and 

 his testimony will be corroborated by all 

 persons whose recollections run back far , 

 enough to compare the summer appearance 

 of that city, with its trees bare as if a fire 

 had swept through them, before the spar- 

 rows came, with the luxuriant foliage they 

 obtained after the birds had worked a year 

 or two upon them. There are many other 

 testimonies to the destruction of insects by 

 sparrows ; but other birds are better at the 

 business. Many equally intelligent and 

 trustworthy witnesses, while admitting their 

 quarrelsomeness, deny that the sparrows 

 drive other birds away. Some of the States 

 have recently passed laws to prevent the fur- 

 ther destruction of song and plumage birds. 

 Where these laws are enforced, the desir- 

 able birds are coming back, and the spar- 

 rows are not keeping them away. Man, 

 not sparrows, is the enemy they have the 

 most reason to dread. 



The Journal op Morphology. Edited by 

 C. 0. Whitman, with the Co-operation of 

 Edward Phelps Allis, Jr. Vol. II, No. 

 3, April, 1889. Boston: Ginn & Co. 

 Pp. 250, with many Plates. 



The " Journal " has fixed a high mark, 

 both in the quality of its articles and in the 

 style of setting them forth, and adheres to 

 it. The present number contains a study 

 of the " Uterus and Embryo of the Rabbit 

 and of Man," by Charles Sedgwick Minot ; 

 "The Anatomy and Development of the 

 Lateral Line System in Amia Calva," by 

 Mr. Allis; "The Organization of Atoms and 

 Molecules," by Prof. A. E. Dolbear ; "Some 

 New Facts about the BTirudinea," by Mr. 

 Whitman ; and " Segmental Sense-Organs 

 of Arthropods," by William Patten. 



