PREFATORY LETTER. 



The English Sparrow question in North America has grown to be a 

 serious problem in economic science, {particularly so far as the agricult- 

 ural interests of the country are concerned — and the term agriculture 

 must be here understood in its broadest and most comprehensive sense 

 as including the grain-growing industries, truck-gardening, fruit-grow- 

 ing, the cultivation of flowers and ornamental shrubs and vines, and even 

 forestry. It was deemed y roper, therefore, that this question should be 

 made the subject of the first bulletin of the newly established Division of 

 Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy. 



The information necessary to a complete understanding of the sub- 

 ject has been collected with great care; the evidence submitted has 

 been honestly weighed, and the results impartially stated. 



The labor of collecting and arranging for publication the matter con- 

 tained in Part II, together with the authorship of most of Part I, has 

 fallen upon my assistant, Mr. Walter B. Barrows, 



Brief portions of Part I, including the tables relating to the increase 

 and spread of the Sparrow, were prepared by myself and are here re- 

 produced without quotation marks from my annual report for 1886. 

 Section 2 of Part I, consisting of recommendations for legislation and 

 recommendations to the people, has been written jointly by Mr. Barrows 

 and myself. 



Prof. 0. V. Biley, Entomologist of the Department, has kindly con- 

 tributed a full and valuable report on the Insectivorous Habits of the 

 English Sparrow, based chiefly on the examination of stomachs sub- 

 mitted to him by this Division. 



Section 4, on the Destruction of Sparrows by Poisons, was prepared 

 by Dr. A. K. Fisher, assistant ornithologist, by whom the experiments 

 were conducted. 



Section 5, on Trapping the Sparrow, was contributed by Mr. W. T. 

 Hill, who makes a business of trapping Sparrows in Indianapolis, Ind. 

 The cuts illustrating Mr. Hill's article, together with the description of 

 the apparatus used, were taken from the American Field of January 

 14,188^. 



