156 THE ENGLISH SPARROW IN AMERICA. 



During the next three months no increase will take place, but the de- 

 crease from bounties will be rather less than for any previous quarter, 

 since the birds will have scattered to the country, and constant persecu- 

 tion will have made them very suspicious and difficult to kill. Perhaps, 

 however, 40 per cent, will be killed and offered for bounties. 



By summing up the results of the year's work it will be found that 

 the number of Sparrows in Ohio has been reduced from 40,000,000 to 

 about 14,500,000, but at the expense of bounties paid on seventy seven mill- 

 ion six hundred thousand Sparrows. 



The opening of a second year finds the Sparrows reduced to about 

 one third of their original numbers, but this very paucity of numbers, 

 joined to the experience acquired by the Sparrows during one year of 

 zealous persecution, will make it a difficult matter to keep up the 

 same rate of destruction during another year. However, by largely in- 

 creasing the bounty it might be possible, and, provided the natural in- 

 crease be estimated as heretofore, the end of the second j ear would 

 find but 5,184,000 Sparrows left, although bounties would be paid dur- 

 ing the year on nearly 25,000,000 Sparrows. 



If now, by any increase of bounty, this rate of destruction could be 

 maintained for the third year, about 10,000,000 more Sparrows would 

 be killed and less than 2,000,000 would be left. 



The fourth year at the same rate would reduce the surviving Spar- 

 rows to about 672,000 at the expense of a heavy bounty on more than 

 3,500,000, and the fifth year would result in the death of about 1,300,000, 

 with a living remnant of 241,865 Sparrows. 



The following table shows in detail the successive steps by which 

 such a reduction would be made; the entire argument, however, resting 

 on the assumption that as the number of Sparrows is lessened the 

 bounty is increased, so that a fixed rate of reduction is maintained. 

 Thus the bounty offered at the beginning of each year is assumed to bo 

 large enough to effect the destruction of more than five-sixths (84^ per 

 cent.) of all the Sparrows (original plus increase) in the State during 

 the year, so that the total number in the State at the beginning of any 

 year will be but 36 per cent, of the number existing there at the begin- 

 ning of the previous year. 



