260 THE ENGLISH SPARROW IN AMERICA. 



will not consume more than is willfully wasted in the fields by the farmers themselves. 

 However, it is enough to raise a cry against tkem by agriculturists. Whether the 

 bird does enough good to pay for the wheat he consumes when standing ripe in the 

 field and in the shock is something I can not say. (October 11, 1883. Present about 

 twelve years.) 



Quebec— Montreal. George John Bowles : Farmers in the neighborhood complain 

 greatly of the injury it does to grain crops. (August 8, 1884.) 



Quebec. Col. William Rhodes: It does not injure the grain crop about here. Our 

 grain ripens so rapidly the- birds have no time to injure it. (February 11, 1884. Pres- 

 ent about twenty years.) 



ENGLAND. — Cambridge County. This county is a grain and stock country ; most of 

 it is known as the Fen country. For many years previous to the time I left this 

 country (1858) the farmers had taxed themselves three pence per acre to extermiuato 

 the Sparrows. They were so numerous that they were a terribly destructive pest to 

 the grain farmers, in the winter time appearing in very large flocks of from five hund- 

 red to five thousand. When a lad of ten or twelve years of age, I was employed with 

 a shotgun to keep them from pulling up and destroying the sprouting grain in October, 

 but in the spring it was often necessary to have two boys in a 30-acre field of rye, 

 oats, or barley to keep them from carrying off the newly-sown grain. So numerous 

 and destructive were they that for a full week after the grain was up boys would be 

 employed to keep them off. (Jabez Webster, Centralia, 111., December 21, 1886.) 



It does great damage to wheat crops. When a boy in Norfolk, England, I have 

 seen fields where the wheat was destroyed two rods in from the fence by the Sparrow. 

 The town paid so much per dozen for killing them. (.Henry Harrison, Rochester, N. 

 Y., August 23, 1886.) 



I remember an old farmer in England who claimed that he raised 80 bushels of 

 wheat to the acre. ''That was a tremendous crop," said his hearers. "Yes," said 

 he, "the way of it was this: All my meu told me they were sure the Sparrows ate 

 half of my wheat, and yet I thrashed 40 bushels to the acre." I saw the depredations 

 myself on that particular crop, and they were very great. They generally attack 

 the corners of fields aud the parts along high hedges near a village or farm stack. 

 (David H. Henrnan, Willows, Griggs County, Dak., December 12, 1886.) 



For years previous to 1841, at which time I left England, we saw the grain crops 

 around Leamington, Warwickshire, devoured by these little gluttons. My grand- 

 father had to employ from thirty to forty girls and boys to drive the rascals from his 

 fields of wheat, oats, and barley. My share in the work was simply to knock them 

 clown with the shotgun when the clouds were raised. The people in this country 

 have no idea of the countless millions of Sparrows on the other side. (Thomas Birt, 

 Utica, N. Y., September 16, 1887.) 



I have seen wheat fields in England, adjoining timber and near towns, with belts 

 six or eight feet wide totally divested of all grain. (Robert Williamson, Troy, 111., 

 October 2, 1886.) 



EELATION TO OTHEK BIEDS. 



The original testimony on this subject consists of replies to several 

 distinct questions, and is thus more difficult of analysis than the evi- 

 dence in the preceding sections. 



One thousand and forty-eight observers contributed information, and 

 in one hundred and fifty-three cases their entire replies are of such a 

 nature as to be readily summarized, while in three hundred and thirty- 

 seven other cases only part of the evidence in each report can be treated 

 thus. The following lists show the character of the evidence so far as 

 it can be summarized briefly. 



