EVIDENCE. FROM AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS. 325 



result of the increase of the English Sparrow, which feeds iu the breeding season 

 upon smooth worms, less harmful to our trees, and thus gives better opportunity for 

 the rejected Orgyia to increase, a result still further promoted by the habit of driv- 

 ing away the native birds, which the English Sparrow is known to have. The same 

 reasoning will hold true in respect of the Web-worm ; and, putting all sentiment 

 aside, we may safely aver that this bird is an impediment rather than an aid iu pre- 

 serving our trees from their worst insect defoliators. There is every reason to believe 

 that the Bag-worm is carried, when young, from tree to tree upon the claws and legs 

 of the bird, and its dissemination is thus aided and its destruction rendered more 

 difficult; while the yellow suspended cocoons of the Meteorus hyphantriw (the most 

 important of the parasites of the Web-worm) are sought by the Sparrow, probably 

 being mistaken for grains of wheat. 



While our feathered friends, owing to the Sparrow's pugnacity, are now things of 

 the past, and can only be seen in the spring when they pass through the cities in 

 their migrations to more peaceable nesting places, yet something might be done to 

 encourage their stay. Nesting places might be provided for them not alone by bird 

 boxes, which, good in themselves, are at once occupied by the English Sparrow; they 

 must be afforded safer and natural quarters. 



[Essay read September 4, 1879, before the "West Cbester (Pa.) Microscopical Society, by the secretary, 



Dr. B. H. Warren.] 



These birds since their introduction in our county (Chester) have elicited consider- 

 able interest and comment. In answer to the common interrogatory : Are the Spar- 

 rows injurious or beneficial to the agriculturist ? the following facts are submitted, 

 as observed by the writer since the transition of the little foreigners. 



The autopsies of seventy-five Sparrows, made in 1878, revealed in seventy-three 

 grain and vegetable material solely. Each of the other two had in its stomach, which 

 was distended with wheat, a coleopterous insect (beetle). By this series of examina- 

 tions it will be seen that only two seventy-fifths of the birds dissected had any insect 

 food, and that in a minimum proportion. 



The vegetable material referred to was buds and blossoms of the grape-vine, the 

 plum, pear, peach, and haw trees ; also some little grass and a few of the earlier annual 

 plants. 



For wheat they have a great predilection, as receptacles of sixty odd contained only 

 that cereal. Oats, corn, rye, clover, timothy, and other seeds variously enter into their 

 bill of fare. As some have claimed that said Sparrow is granivorous only in winter, 

 when in order to sustain existence he is obliged to live on a grain diet, I have, during 

 the months of March, April, May, and June of the present year, examined fifty speci- 

 mens, of which number forty-seven showed cereal and vegetable food, and one con- 

 tained a siw#7e coleopterous insect in conjunction with an abundance of wheat The 

 food receptaeles of the two remaining birds were void of any nutritious matter. . . . 

 In reference to their distribution, I think it can safely be said they are in by far the 

 greater part of the towns and villages of our county. In West Chester, and a radius 

 of five or eight miles, they are found in numbers. Sparrows in the late summer, fall, 

 and winter congregate in large parties. 



Prior to the gathering in of the crops, these birds do a vast deal of damage to the 

 grains. The sweet or sugar corn, so valued on account of its esculent properties, like- 

 wise satisfies these gormandizing omnivores. They will visit a corn-field, alight on the 

 ears, tear open the top of the husk, and luxuriate on the half-formed milky grain. The 

 remaining portions of the ears are left partially nude and necessarily subject to the 

 ravages of insects and atmospheric ckauges, which frequently result in their complete 

 destruction. 



Although considerable damage is done to corn in the way above described, yet the 

 destruction done wheat crops is far iu excess. Of course the quantity of graiu eaten 

 by each is very small, still the amount sufficient to supply a flock of 500 or 1,000 



