EVIDENCE. — FROM AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS. 305 



[American Naturalist, Vol. XVI, p, 1009. December, 1882.] 

 HABITS OF THE ENGLISH SPARROW. 



The following interesting note has been received from Dr. A. K. Fisher, of Sing 

 Sing, N. Y. : 



"Knowing your great fondness for Passer domesticus, I send you a brief account of one 

 of the various ways in which he imposes upon his superiors. The following was re- 

 lated to me by a friend, who was an eye-witness : 



" ' You well know that when robins are feeding their young they will often collect a 

 number of worms, forming a large billful, before making a trip to the nest. Well, 

 the Sparrow noticed this, too, and when the robiu would alight to pick up something 

 more, he would dash down beside the robin and snatch whatever might be in his 

 mouth, then fly a few feet off. The robin would hop after him, when he would make 

 another short flight until the robin would give up and go and hunt for something 

 more.' 



"My friend saw the Sparrow do this five or six times one afternoon." (Elliott 

 Coues, Washington, D. C.) 



[Science, Vol. VII, p. 80, January 22, 1886.] 

 THE ENGLISH SPARROW. 



A European ornithological journal recently contained the following testimony in 

 regard to the Sparrow (Pyrgita domestica), from the pen of Dr. Schleh, professor of 

 agriculture at the college of agriculture, Herford, Germany. Dr. Schleh has paid a 

 great deal of atteution to this matter, and believes the Sparrow a pest on the Conti- 

 nent, voluminous evidence of which he is said to have brought forward in his small 

 treatise entitled " Der Xatze und Scliaden dts Sperlings (P. domesticus) im Hauslialte der 

 Xatur." 



By examining the crops of a great number of nestling Sparrows sent to him from 

 different parts of the country, he found that young Sparrows, while in the nest and 

 for a week after having left it, subsist entirely on insects, grubs, etc. Two weeks 

 after leaving the nest their food still consists of 43 per cent, of animal food ; a week 

 later of 31 per cent., and after that age of only 19 per cent, of animal ingredients. 

 But as soon as they become independent of their parents they prefer seeds, and sub- 

 sist almost entirely on grain, fruit, and the buds of trees. Dr. Schleh, however, men- 

 tions some interesting instances regarding some specimens which seemed to have a 

 peculiar taste for the seeds of weeds which often become a great plague to the agri- 

 •culturist. In one crop he found the considerable number of three hundred and 

 twenty-one whole seeds of Stellaria media (Vill.), in another forty-three seeds of Alri- 

 plex patulum (L.), in a third sixty-six seeds of Setaria verticiUata. Some individuals 

 also have a special liking for certain insects. Thus he found in one crop ninety 

 specimens of Haiti ea affinis (Gyll. ), four other Sparrows had eaten almost nothing 

 else but a certain kind of beetle, Anisoplia fructicola (F.). (Ernest Lngersoll.) 



[Forest and Stream, Vol. VIII, p. 165.] 



As an encouragement to importers of birds, I claim to have imported Sparrows into 

 America at Portland, Me., in 1854, and I had to import them three times at Quebec be- 

 fore they took root. The two first importations were secret. To the latter I gave the 

 utmost publicity, and the last course was the successful one. * * * I imagine no 

 live Yankee would wish to be now without the life and animation of the House Spar- 

 row in his great cities. They are like gas in a town — a sign of progress. I admit the 

 bird is a little blackguard — fond of low society and full of fight, stealing, and love- 

 making — but he is death on insects, fond of citizen life, and in every way suitable to 

 be ;in inhabitant of the New World. * * * (W. Rhodes, Quebec, Canada, April?, 

 1877.) 



8404— Bull. 1 20 



