EVIDENCE. PROM AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS. 319 



[Cincinnati Daily Commercial Gazette, July 2, 1887.] 



* * * We have one bit of damaging evidence against the good character of the 

 Sparrow, which we have not seen mentioned in print anywhere else, in all the array of 

 evidence against him. Last year we cut a small field of heavy wheat in which a few 

 hundred Sparrows had camped. Not only around the border, but all through the 

 middle of the field, where the wheat was heaviest, it was broken down and tangled, 

 so that fully one fourth of the crop was lost. As soon as the wheat kernel had 

 formed the vandalism began. 



Here is the damaging point. A close inspection revealed the astounding fact that 

 the ground was literally covered with mashed kernels of wheat to the extent of sev- 

 eral bushels to the acre. While the kernel is yet soft they will not swallow it whole. 

 With their short, powerful beaks they easily press out the milky substance, let the 

 rest drop, and go to the next. Let this point be noted for what it is worth. I trust 

 the prosecutiug attorney will dwell upon it, and that the judge will mention it in 

 his charge to the jury before they retire to deliberate upon a verdict soon to be ren- 

 dered for or against the English Sparrow. (A. D. Binkerd, M. D., Cochran, Intl., 

 Juue 12.) 



[Albany (S. T.) Express, Friday, October 7, 1887.] 



* * * Sparrows are also noted once more on the stands of the game dealers, and 

 retail, for chicken pies, at 30 cents per dozen. Joseph Clark, the well-known State- 

 street fruiterer, yesterday took in 3,000 of the little birds, paying $1 per hundred for 

 them to the youthful hunters, who have once more resumed the slaughter of the in- 

 nocents on the outskirts of the city, more especially up in the west end. 



[New York Times, July 20, 1887.] 



Sparrows are being properly appreciated. Hundreds of them are now caught by 

 enterprising people for sale to certain restaurants where reed birds are in demand. 

 A German woman on Third avenue has three traps set every day, and she catches 

 probably seventy -five a week. They are cooked and served to her boarders the same 

 as reed birds and are declared quite as great a delicacy. This German woman bastes 

 them, leaving the little wooden skewer in the bird when served. They are cooked 

 with a bit of bacon. She tempts them with oats, and after the catch they are fed 

 a while with boiled eaten meal. She sprinkles oaten meal in the back yard also, and 

 thereby fattens the free birds. The females are the choice meat. The males can be 

 told by the circle of white feathers at the neck. The females are as plain as Quaker- 

 esses. So soon as it becomes known that the Sparrow is a table bird their number 

 will rapidly grow less. People don't like to experiment, but when it is discovered 

 that the Sparrow has been declared good by those upon whom they have been tried, 

 no boarding-house meal will be deemed in good form unless a dish of fat Sparrows 

 adorns it. Sparrow pie is a delicacy fit to set before a king. 



[Cincinnati "Weekly Commercial, April 19, 1882.] 



H. E. B., of Plymouth, Mich., in the Country Gentleman, narrates his test of the 

 Sparrow as an insect eater. He was in pursuit of the codling moth, which had been 

 carried into the cellar with the winter supply of apples. He knew the habits of the 

 codling moth and expected them to come out of his apple barrels and seek hiding- 

 places. Accordingly he laid two boards together, convenient for the broods to conceal 

 between and spin the cocoons. As expected, the boards were stuck together with 

 the cocoons, and in the spring he carried them out and spread the boards and cocoons 

 in Bight of the pestiferous Sparrows and hens, hoping to see the much praised insect- 

 ivorous bird destroy the cocoons with alacrity. We let him tell his own story: 



I was greatly mortified to see the Sparrows run over the cocoons in search of wheat 

 screenings thrown out to call them down. 



