RILEY ON ITS INSECTIVOROUS HABITS. 121 



distinguishable by the stellate hairs upon their surface, are also readily 

 mistaken for pieces of the elytra of some beetles and true bugs. 



As may be gathered from the statement of their habits the insects 

 taken from the Sparrows in question are represented most numerously 

 by what may be called innoxious species, i. e., species which do no par- 

 ticular harm to the agriculturist and, directly, but little good. Most of 

 the Hymenoptera and the Arachnida, however, are indirectly beneficial, 

 as are several of the Heteroptera. Even among the Coleoptera the 

 innoxious outnumber the noxious species, and the good done by the 

 birds in destroying the few Orthoptera and Lepidoptera is about coun- 

 terbalanced by the number of species taken which are directly or indi- 

 rectly beneficial to the farmer. 



When it is considered that during the very year in which most of 

 these birds were shot the shade trees of Washington were suffering 

 from several insect defoliators, and that out of the four different species 

 but two specimens of one of them, viz, Hyphantria cwiea, were taken by 

 the Sparrows, there can be no more eloquent comment on the bird's 

 uselessness in protecting vegetation from insect injury. Not a single 

 specimen of the Imported Elm-leaf Beetle, the Bag Worm, or the White- 

 marked Tussock-moth was taken in any stage, and these facts correspond 

 entirely with what I have stated in Bulletin No. 10, Entomological Divis- 

 ion, published last year. In this connection it may be of interest, as Dr. 

 Merriam has alluded to the subject at length in his report of last year, 

 to repeat a letter, bearing on this particular point, which I wrote to Dr. 

 Elliott Coues in 1878, and which, published, I believe, in one of the 

 reports of the District Commissioners^ has been lost sight of by natural- 

 ists. It shows the replacement of Paleacritaby Orgyia through the Spar- 

 row's instrumentality, just as, four years earlier, Le Gonte had shown, 

 through similar agency, the replacement of Ennomos by Orgyia. It is 

 as follows : 



ANENT THE ENGLISH SPARROW. 



My Dear Dr. Coues : I notice by a recent article in one of our morning papers 

 that Prof. T. M. Brewer, of Boston, Mass., has addressed a letter to our District Com- 

 missioners on the subject of the English Sparrows, in which he seems to animadvert 

 pretty strongly on the position which you have taken in refereuce to this sparrow 

 question. I do not fully' know what recommendation with reference to this bird you 

 have made to the Commissioners, nor do I wish to enter into the controversy that has 

 been for some time going on between the bird's condenmers and defenders ; but there 

 is an entomological phase of the question, which appears to be entirely overlooked by 

 the latter class. 



The English Sparrow was introduced ostensibly as a means of freeing the shade 

 trees of some of our New England cities, and especially the elms, of that rather an- 

 noying pest, the well-known Canker-worm, and, more particularly, the species which 

 I have designated as the Spring Canker-worm (Paleacrila vernata), to distinguish it 

 from another species long confounded with it, but occurring later in the season. It 

 is well known that this Spring Canker-worm was for many years a grievous nuisance, 

 not only because of the injury it did to elms and other shade trees, but because it 

 was continually spinning down upon persons who happened to be passing under 

 infested trees. Its annoyances and injuries were, however, confined to some five or 



