302 THE ENGLISH SPARROW IN AMERICA. 



grain as it approaches maturity, and even that which has heen stored in granaries. 

 Some writers have wrongly supposed that the insects destroyed hy them compensated 

 for their ravages on grain. Eighty-two grains of wheat were counted in the craw of a 

 Sparrow shot by the writer, and Rougier de la Bergerie, to whom we owe excellent 

 memoirs on rural economy, estimates that the Sparrows of France consume annually 

 10,000,000 bushels of wheat." 



Valinontde Bomare, in his dictionary, published in 1791, says that "in Brande- 

 bonrg, Prussia, in order to diminish the ravages committed by Sparrows, a price is 

 set on thoir heads, and the peasants are compelled by law to bring in a certain num- 

 ber yearly. In each village there are Sparrow hunters, who sell the birds to the peas- 

 ants to enable them to pay their tribute." (Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., xi, 1867, pp. 

 157,158.) 



For more than four centuries the character of the House Sparrow has 

 beeu discussed in France, Germany, and Great Britain, and from time 

 to time, especially during the last hundred years, official investigations 

 of greater or less magnitude have beeu undertaken by different states 

 or provinces, in the hope of settling the question. Among such efforts 

 in Europe may be mentioned the commission appoiuted by the Senate of 

 France, which, under the direction of M. Florent Prevost, finished its 

 work in 1SG1; the Commission on Wild Birds Protection, appointed by 

 the British Parliament in LS73; more recently (1885), the work of 

 Mr. J. H. Gurney, jr., and Col. Champion Eussell, entitled The House 

 Sparrow ; and the ninth annual report (1885) on Injurious Insects and 

 Common Farm Pests, by Miss Eleanor A. Qrmerod, consulting entomol- 

 ogist to the Poyal Agricultural Society of England. Extracts from 

 some of these works will be found in the following pages. 



The lesser publications on the Sparrow question in Europe are too 

 numerous to mention, but, unfortunately, as Prof. Alfred Newton re- 

 marks in the last edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (art. Sparrow), 



No definite result that a fair judge can accept has yet been reached. * * * Both 

 friends and foes of the Sparrow write as violent partisans, and the truth will not be 

 known until a series of experiments, conducted by scientifically-trained investigators, 

 has been instituted, which, to the shame of numerous agricultural and horticultural 

 societies, has not yet heen clone. 



In other parts of the Old World much damage has been done by spar- 

 rows, but frequently other species than the English Sparrow have been 

 concerned. Thus in Algeria immense injury to grain crops has been 

 done by sparrows, but the species doing the most harm, if not all of it, 

 is undoubtedly the Spauish sparrow (Passer hispaniolensis), a near rela- 

 tive of the House Sparrow, but a bird which avoids human habitations 

 and nests in large communities in groves, thickets, sedges, and beds of 

 tall reeds and grass. The ravages of this species, a detailed account of 

 which appeared in the French Bulletin de la Societe d'Acclimatation 

 (Vol. Ill, 1S76, pp. 4G0-1G3, and Vol. IV, 1877, p. 62), have been attrib- 

 uted by American writers to the House Sparrow, but there is no evidence 

 that the latter bird had any part in the mischief, although it is known 

 to exist in some of the cities and towns of Algeria. 



In Australia and New Zealand, however, the English Sparrow, orig- 



