INJURY TO BUDS AND BLOSSOMS. 45 



served, seemed to prefer to put bis bill down into tbo open ilower and eut out tbe 

 center, but if tbe blossom chanced to stand in such a position that this could not be 

 douo readily, he bit off the entire blossom close to the stem, and apparently dropped 

 it all to the ground. In several instances Sparrows were seen to pinch off and drop three 

 buds iu succession in as many seconds, and this seemed to be done without any cause, 

 unless possibly because they were in the way, or because they were so placed as not 

 to be easily reached from the right side. 



On several of the trees which I examined carefully with the glass more than half 

 the blossoms were wilted and mutilated, and repeatedly Sparrows were seen to alight 

 on twigs which contained few but ruined blossoms, and after a quick glance pass on 

 to sprays of untouched flowers. (W. B. B.) 



Abundant evidence is at baud to show that such proceedings as that 

 just described are not exceptional, but of regular and frequent occur- 

 rence, and there can be no doubt that often the crop of fruit is seriously 

 lessened in this way. 



The injury is by no means confined to the buds aud blossoms of peaches, 

 for cherries, grapes, plums, and pears suffer almost as much, and few, 

 if any, fruit trees escape attack altogether. The following list shows 

 the kinds of buds and blossoms which suffer most, aud the number of 

 observers reporting injury to each kind : 



Reports. 



Peach 24 



Pear 22 



Reports. 



Currant 6 



Maple 9 



Elm 7 



Other shade trees 8 



E venrreens 9 



Grape 21 



Plum 17 



Cherry 14 



Apple 16 



And two or three reports each of injury to buds of the quince, apricot, 

 orange, fig, lilac, etc. 



All these reports are well worth reading entire, but w^e insert only a 

 few here, sufficient to confirm the foregoing statements, 



William Saunders, of Washington, D. 0., superintendent of garden 

 and grounds of the Department of Agriculture, writes : 



I have a peach tree in my yard, the branches of which are within three feet of my bed- 

 room window. It is now nearly in full flower, and, as usual, the Sparrows busy them- 

 selves in pecking at the blossoms. I watched them closely this morning, and found 

 that they almost uniformly made two pecks, and two only, at each blossom. First 

 one or two petals were removed aud discarded, then another peck was made, and so 

 on to other flowers. After watching them for some time, I opened the window blinds 

 (through which I had been watehing the birds) and found that the embryo fruit was 

 removed from all the blossoms thus operated upon. By removing a petal or two on 

 one side of the flower the embryo fruit was easily secured. Unopened buds seemed 

 to be preferred. All the flowers thus destroyed were not removed or broken off; only 

 an occasional bud would fall to the ground. The fruit embryos were removed so 

 dexterously that the remnants of the blossom still stuck to the twigs. (April 14, 1887. ) 



Within the last few days the Sparrows have attacked and seriously injured the 

 flower buds of a blue and white Wistaria on my house. The flower clusters are still 

 quite small, only about three inches in length, aud downy and tender. The birds are 

 pulling them all to pieces, and the ground in the vicinity is strewn with fragments. 

 Last year the vine was loaded with magnificent clusters of flowers, but this year I 

 shall have very few, and those low down, where the Sparrows are afraid to come. 

 (April 25, 1887.) 



