126 THE ENGLISH SPARROW IN AMERICA. 



in the letter already quoted I subsequently showed to be the case with 

 Paleacriia and Orgyia through the same agency. 



Dr. John Dixwell dissected the stomachs of 39 Sparrows shot at the 

 height of the canker-worm season in Boston, with the result (Boston 

 Daily Advertiser, March 7, 1878) that no insects were found. 



Dr. H. A. Hagen, in an article published in the American Agricult- 

 urist for May, 1878, fully discusses the question of the bird's useful- 

 ness, quoting various old European writers pro and con, as T. F. Bock 

 in 1784, F. M. Bechstein in 1795, as well as later writers like C. W. L. 

 Gloger. Dr. Hagen argues strongly in favor of the bird from a utili- 

 tarian standpoint, but brings forth no new positive evidence of an 

 original character. 



Dr. 0. J. Maynard, in the Scientific Farmer for March, 1879, records 

 the results of fifty-six dissections made from September 17 to October 10, 

 all of the birds having been shot in the city of Boston, and including 

 both young and old. He gives a very full statement, together with a 

 description with illustrations of the structure of the stomach of the Spar- 

 row, and it is somewhat surprising that he found no insect remains in 

 these fifty-six stomachs. 



In Forest and Stream (Vol. XII, p. 424, July 3, 1879) is quoted a state- 

 ment of the Elizabeth (IS". J.) Journal, to the effect that the English Spar- 

 rows had been observed eating immense numbers of winged ants. It 

 mentions another observation where a Sparrow had eaten a maimed hor- 

 net. 



The same journal (Yol. XXIX, p. 164, September 22, 1887) states that 

 web caterpillars (doubtless Fyphantria is meant), having become exceed- 

 ingly numerous upon a Virginia Creeper in Sing Sing, N. Y., entirely 

 denuded it and so exposed the roosts of the Sparrows that the birds had 

 to give way and move their quarters. 



In the American Naturalist (Yol. XY, pp. 392-393, 1881), Prof. S. A. 

 Forbes, of Illinois, who has done the best work of any one in America 

 on the relation of birds to insects, dissected twenty-five Sparrows killed 

 during the month of September, in 1879 and 1880. He found the frag- 

 ments of grain picked up on the streets, the seeds of a few of the com- 

 monest grasses, and traces of three locusts, the latter perhaps six per 

 cent, of the food consumed. At the same time thirty per cent, of the 

 food of the Bobin, twenty per cent, of that of the Catbird, and ninety 

 per cent, of that of the Bluebird consisted of insects. 



Dr. B. H. Warren, of West Chester, Pa., in an essay read before the 

 West Chester Mic. Soc, September 4, 1879, stated that of the autopsies 

 of seventy-five Sparrows, made in 1878, seventy- three revealed solely 

 grain and vegetable material. In the other two cases, the stomachs, 

 which were distended with wheat, contained each a Coleopterous insect 

 not specifically identified. 



To disprove the claim that sparrows are graminivorous only in winter, 

 when in order to sustain existence they are obliged to live on a grain 



