162 THE ENGLISH SPAKROW IN AMERICA. 



It is stated that up to this time the number of prairie dogs and ground 

 squirrels killed had had no perceptible effect on their abundance in the 

 Territory, and as the money in the treasury was exhausted,the Govern- 

 or, with the permission of the President, called a special session of the 

 legislature and the act was repealed. 



MICHIGAN'S BOUNTY LAW ON ENGLISH SPARROWS. 



In 1887 the State of Michigan offered a bounty of 1 cent apiece for 

 English Sparrows in lots of not less than 25. (A copy of the act will 

 be found on page 169 of this Bulletin.) 



Any claim for this bounty must be submitted to the clerk of the town- 

 ship, village, or city in which the Sparrows were killed, and, if allowed, 

 the clerk issues a certificate for the proper amount, payable by the 

 county treasurer, from the contingent fund of the county. This act 

 went into effect March 15, 1887, but for various reasons it does not ap- 

 pear to answer the purpose intended. 



Unquestionably, the law itself is defective in some respects. Thus, 

 in Wayne County, of which Detroit is the county seat, no bounties have 

 been paid, owing to the fact that the county treasurer has "no author- 

 ity to pay anything except on the warrant of the board of auditors," 

 and the bounty act provides only for payment on certificates issued by 

 the clerk of a township, village, or city. The act provides, furthermore, 

 that the bounties shall be paid from the contingent fund of the couut3 r , 

 and in some cases the county supervisors have failed to make any pro- 

 vision for such payment. The proviso that not less than 25 heads can 

 be presented at once, and the necessity of going or sending to the 

 county seat, are features which deter many persons from availing them- 

 selves of the act, but, even were all these obstacles removed, it seems 

 probable that the offer of 1 cent a head would not be large enough to 

 tempt many persons to engage in the business of killing Sparrows. 



In reply to requests sent to the county treasurers throughout the 

 State, reports have been received to date from forty-one counties. 

 These reports cover a large part of the area in which Sparrows are 

 most numerous, and may be taken, therefore, as a fair sample of the 

 whole State; yet in twenty-two of these counties no Sparrows what- 

 ever have been presented for bounty. The largest number reported 

 thus far from any one county is 1,G38 from Kent County, between Jan- 

 uary 1, 1888, and March 30, 1888. The number on which bounties 

 were paid in this county prior to January 1, 1888, is not reported, but 

 on the above basis it would have been nearly 5,200, or about 6,800 Spar- 

 rows for the first year in which the law was operative. The reports 

 from two other counties are similarly incomplete, giving returns for 

 only a small part of the time, but by estimating as above, an approxi- 

 mation to the actual number has been obtained, and the total number 

 of Sparrows killed, for lounties in these forty-one counties is about 



