AN IDEAL BOUNTY LAW. 155 



a person skilled in shooting or trapping conkl kill only 100 or less per 

 day, the bounty of one cent would cease to be an inducement, and the 

 few Sparrows killed by boys and others, who might still follow them up 

 for sport, would be insignificant. 



Meanwhile, the very means used to destroy them would serve to dis- 

 tribute the remainder more evenly through the country, and their rapid 

 rate ot increase would more than counterbalance the losses caused by 

 the bounty law. At the close of the year, therefore, the State would 

 have paid out a large sum of money, and there would be just as many 

 Sparrows as ever, and in all probability more. 



But suppose that the bounty can be made large enough to insure the 

 immediate destruction of a large proportion of the Sparrows. Let it 

 be assumed that with 40,000,000 Sparrows as a starting point on Jan- 

 uary 1, so large a bounty is offered that during the next three months 

 20,000,000 Sparrows are killed. During this time no young will have 

 been reared, so there will be but 20,000,000 Sparrows left. 



If now left undisturbed, these birds would rear at least two broods of 

 four or five young each during the next three months ; that is 10,000,000 

 pairs would rear about 20,000,000 broods, aggregating upwards of 

 80,000,000 young. But in consequence of the bounty many will be 

 killed before they rear any young, others will be able to rear but a sin- 

 gle brood, while others still will succeed in rearing as many young as 

 usual. In order not to overstate the increase let us assume the average 

 number of young hatched during this quarter to be 4 for each pair of 

 adults, but that two-fifths of the adults and one-half of all the young are 

 killed for bounties during the quarter. Thus, starting with 20,000,000 

 Sparrows (10,000,000 pairs), before July 1, 40,000,000 young will be 

 hatched, but 20,000,000 will be killed, together with 8,000,000 of the 

 adults, so that, on July 1, there will remain 12,000,000 old birds and 

 20,000,000 young, or 32,000,000 in all. 



By this time most of the old birds will have become very shy, but as the 

 full grown young are much more abundant, as well as much less wary, the 

 larger part of the Sparrows killed during the next three months will be 

 young birds. Most of the adults, however, will succeed in rearing one 

 more brood ; but, allowing for the constant persecution to which they are 

 subjected, and granting that one-third of the adults are killed during the 

 quarter, these broods will hardly average more than 2 young to a pair. 

 Thus, G,000,000 pairs will hatch 12,000,000 young, 6,000,000 of which 

 will be killed, together with 4,000,000 of the parents. It may be al- 

 lowed also, in accordance with previous estimates, that one-half the 

 young birds of the earlier broods are killed during this quarter ; so that, 

 on October 1, there would be left 8,000,000 adults, 6,000,000 young of 

 the last brood, and 10,000,000 from the earlier broods, a total of 24,000,000 ; 

 while bounties have been paid on 4,000,000 adults and 16,000,000 young, 

 or on 20,000,000 in all. 



