POISONS AND THEIR PREPARATION. 175 



Corrosive sublimate, cyanide of potassium, phosphorus, and a number 

 of other poisons, although efficient, can not be recommended on account 

 of the danger attending their use. 



COST OF POISONED GRAIN. 



Arsenic costs about seven or eight cents per pound and four pounds 

 will poison a bushel of wheat (60 pounds), so that a bushel of arsenic- 

 poisoned wheat would cost from a dollar to a dollar and a quarter, ac- 

 cording to the price of wheat, and corn-meal poisoned in like manner 

 would cost about the same. This amount of poison, however, is much 

 larger than most persons would need to use> and probably would be 

 sufficient to kill more than twenty-five thousand Sparrows. 



Strychnine is much more expensive 'than arsenic, but ordinarily an 

 ounce of strychnine should not cost more than $2. An ounce of strych- 

 nine dissolved in four gallons of water suffices to poison a bushel of 

 wheat, which will cost, therefore, from $2.75 to $3, according to the price 

 of wheat. 



An ounce of average winter wheat contains about seven hundred ker- 

 nels. A quart (30 ounces) contains about twenty-one thousand kernels. 

 A bushel (60 pounds) contains about six hundred and seventy-two thou- 

 sand kernels. Six or seven kernels poisoned as above would be amply 

 sufficient to kill a Sparrow, and hence a bushel of strychnine-poisoned 

 wheat is enough to kill one hundred thousand Sparrows. 



GENERAL SUGGESTIONS. 



In dealing with as suspicious a bird as the English Sparrow, in cases 

 where the continued use of the poison is required, a slow poison (ouch 

 as arsenic) is preferable to one of rapid action (such as strychnine), for 

 the reason that the effects of the latter may become apparent in certain 

 individuals while the birds are still feeding, the peculiar actions of the 

 affected birds frightening the others away before they have taken enough 

 of the poisoned grain to insure fatal results. In such cases it has been 

 observed that the frightened birds never return to the grain. 



Before putting out poison for Sparrows, the birds should be baited 

 to a certain locality. At the same hour each day they should be fed 

 with the same kind of grain that subsequently is to be used as the ve- 

 hicle for the poison. 



PRECAUTIONS. 



In the use of poisons the utmost caution is necessary to prevent the 

 possibility of accident from the poison itself or from the grain employed 

 as a vehicle for the poison. The following precautions should be ob- 

 served : (1) All vessels containing poison or poisoned grain, and those in 

 which the same are mixed, should be labeled with the word poison in 

 large letters; (2) all vessels containing poison or poisoned grain should 

 be kept out of reach of children and domesticated animals ; (3) in pre- 



