194 THE ENGLISH SPARROW IN AMERICA. 



The Sparrows have traits of character which may set a good exam- 

 ple to some of our birds, ami I hope they will follow it. If they do so, 

 the dauger of being displaced by the foreigner will be greatly dimin- 

 ished. (March 10, 1888.) 



As a great lover of birds, I am naturally inclined to be mild in cen- 

 suring their misdeeds, and although I have been living in war with the 

 House Sparrow since its appearance, I still hoped sometimes that our 

 native birds would learn to repulse the intruder, and that its presence 

 might yet be tolerated to a certain degree. It was in such a spirit of 

 reconciliation that I wrote last March, but the experience of this spring 

 has demonstrated more clearly than ever that leniency toward the 

 House Sparrow would be a crime. A careful watch has revealed the 

 fact beyond doubt that the House Sparrow destroys the eggs of the 

 martin by eating them up without leaving even a trace behind. Six 

 nests were thus destroyed, with from four to six eggs in each. The 

 martins had defended their nests successfully until the cool period about 

 the middle of May, when the scarcity of winged iusects caused thein 

 to go far from home and to stay away long. This absence from their 

 nests enabled the Sparrows to enter the boxes and to eat the eggs. 



In one case Passer was hindered from proceeding farther than drilling 

 holes (J by f inch), through which he probably intended to empty the 

 contents of the eggs and then finish by eating the shell?. In the other 

 cases the eggs disappeared without leaving any traces. Only in one 

 case did the Sparrows begin to build in the box ; in all other cases the 

 nests were left undisturbed. 



The martins watch their treasures well enough during the morning 

 hours, but in the afternoon, especially in cool or dry weather, they like 

 to go off for a hunt and to stay away for several hours. This is the 

 time when the Sparrows sneak into the boxes, and it requires constant 

 vigilance on our part to keep them off and to save the eggs (eighty-five 

 contained in the boxes to-day). 



As long as eight years ago, seeing that the House Sparrow became 

 irrepressible, I tried to compromise with him by putting up separate 

 boxes for his special use, giving him to understand that he would be 

 tolerated there, but nowhere else. This plan seemed to work well, but 

 for a short time only, and I soon found that the only way to deal with 

 them was to destroy their nests and young ones. 



Last spring, being much warmer than this year, was favorable for the 

 martins; they could stay about home nearly all the time, and it really 

 seemed as if they had learned to be more effective in the defense and 

 repulse. But this cool spriug showed me that the martin is too much 

 dependent on the weather to be a successful defender of its home, arid 

 the verdict is, therefore, that the House Sparrow will no longer be tol- 

 erated on my grounds, and that it will be destroyed without mercy, by 

 any means, and at every time of the year, not merely in spring as here- 

 tofore. (Saint Louis, Mo., June 2, 1888.) 



