154 THE ENGLISH SPARROW IN AMERICA. 



be large enough to assure the destruction of the great majority of tbe 

 individuals during the first year, and this is especially true of species 

 which are very numerous and prolific. And yet the amount of money 

 required for the payment of bounties in such cases would be so enor- 

 mous as to make the plan impracticable. 



ESTIMATED COST OF EXTEKMINATIXG THE SPARROWS IX OHIO BY MEANS OF BOUNTIES. 



A rough estimate of the amount of bounty money which would be re- 

 quired to exterminate the Sparrows in a single State may put this mat- 

 ter in a clearer light. Let Ohio serve as an illustration, and for the 

 sake of argument let it be assumed that no Sparrows enter the State 

 from outside after the payment of bounties begins. Ohio has an area of 

 about 40,000 square miles, or 25,500,000 acres, and the entire State is 

 thickly sprinkled with cities, towns, and villages, separated from each 

 other only by populous and productive farm lands which constitute at 

 least three-fourths of the total area of the State. In the larger cities 

 Sparrows fairly swarm, and it is doubtful if they are entirely absent 

 from asingle village of a thousand inhabitants or upwards; moreover, 

 the abundant evidence from Ohio shows that Sparrows are found on 

 almost all the farms in the State, and in grain-growing sections their 

 numbers are almost incredible. 



Mr. Charles Dury, of Avondale, Ohio, says : 



In some localities the swarms of Sparrows are prodigious. One flock observed by 

 me in October, 1837, near Ross Lake, bad tens of thousands of birds in it. They rose 

 in a cloud, and settled, down on a stubble-held, covering it all over. 



It is scarcely possible to do more than guess at the number of Spar, 

 rows which the State of Ohio supports at present, but keeping in mind 

 the points already mentioned and the fact that less than one-fiftieth of 

 the entire area of the State consists of unimproved lands, it will be per- 

 fectly safe to say that Ohio contains at least 20,000,000 acres of good 

 Sparrow country, and that, on an average, there are at least two Spar- 

 rows to the acre, which is 40,000,000 Sparrows for the whole State. 



No doubt this estimate is far too low, but it is desirable to keep far 

 within bounds in making estimates of this kind, and the above figures 

 are sufficiently large for present purposes. 



Supposing all these Sparrows could be killed before any further in- 

 crease took place, they would still cost the State, at one cent apiece, 

 $400,000. But it would be absolutely impossible to exterminate ail the 

 Sparrows in the course of a single year by any expenditure of money, 

 and it is very improbable that so small a bounty as one cent apiece 

 would effect any perceptible decrease in their numbers, if indeed it even 

 neutralized the increase. Certainly not one-half the original 40,000,000 

 would be killed ; for although at first fair wages might be made by kill- 

 ing them in places of greatest abundance, this could not be continued 

 long, as the Sparrows are exceeding cunning and very quickly learn 

 to avoid danger. As soon as Sparrows became so scarce or so shy that 



