334 THE ENGLISH SPARROW IN AMERICA. 



[Page 182.] The House Sparrow stands in a class alone; it can hardly be considered 

 a wild bird; it is a parasite, living mainly on our produce. Its mode of life is such, 

 that it requires to be kept down by man far more than any other bird. 



Sparrows should have no protection by law ; they are bred in great numbers in 

 towns, villages, and about almost every house and cottage. Living along the roads, 

 they soon find their way to and swarm in farm-yards, however closely they may have 

 been killed down there in winter and spring. Farmers, therefore, generally have the 

 nests taken, but many escape in trees. Were this practice prevented, poisoning would 

 be thought necessary. 



Much has been written in favor of the u Sparrows and other small birds.' 7 One con- 

 sequence is, that many people encourage Sparrows to an extent detrimental to their 

 neighbors' crops and to the martins ; another consequence is, that others, rinding the 

 Sparrows destructive, and taking it foi granted that all small birds are alike, destroy 

 all they can. Then, Sparrows being far more wary and cunning, before they are 

 thinned to any extent almost all the other birds are destroyed. 



Nearly all evidence in favor of Sparrows is founded on partial observation, or 

 is vitiated by the fact that when they are killed down the other birds are extermi- 

 nated. The destruction of Sparrows by nets, and particularly by shooting, is almost 

 always accompanied by great slaughter of harmless and useful birds. Warblers and 

 other soft-billed birds are much more effective destroyers of caterpillars and other 

 insects than SpaiTows. 



One great object of protection laws is to educate people to spare harmless birds. 

 One of the first practical stepstoward this desirable end is to teach people that, when 

 it is necessary to thin the Sparrows, other birdsneed not also be destroyed. The indis- 

 criminate zeal which would protect all birds alike, defeats its own object and spoils 

 a good cause by going too far. 



The moral effect of any legal protection to Sparrows, even if not applied to occu- 

 piers, would be to keep up the delusion that all small birds are alike, and thus to en- 

 courage the slaughter of harmless and useful birds with the Sparrows. 



W T hatever may be thought about the utility of a moderate number of Sparrows, 

 few practical farmers doubt that in great numbers they are very destructive ; it seems 

 to me that there is no fear that we shall ever have too few of them ; in spite of all 

 efforts to destroy them, they seem almost everywhere to be greatly increasing in num- 

 bers. 



[Mr. Henry Meyers, market gardener.] 



[Page 20.] I had a Sparrow club once ; I thought they were very injurious birds; 

 we killed them until scarcely one could be found on the premises. After the Spar- 

 rows became almost extinct we found blight of various kinds very much increase upon 

 us, and it has done so ever since. I am glad to say Sparrows are becoming more com- 

 mon with us now ; this year our trees are comparatively free from blight. The com- 

 mittee will draw their own inference, but those were the facts. We have also suffered 

 much less from insects, especially this year. To say the Sparrows do no damage would 

 be wrong, but there is no doubt that they do a larger proportion of good than they do 

 harm. I can not say that I have gone into details, and made post-mortem examina- 

 tions of their stomachs, but there is something interesting in one of those bottles 1 

 think. (Bottles produced by last witness.) You will find the larva of one of the 

 greatest enemies we have— the little green caterpillar that eats up the gooseberry 

 leaves. We are large growers of gooseberries. The Sparrows will sometimes have 

 their share, and go and pick off the ends of the blossoms, but they do that over a very 

 small extent of our plantation near the buildings and near the hedges. My foreman 

 at Bedfont said, " These Sparrows are stuffing at the gooseberries; what shall we 

 do ?" I said, " Let them alone ; they will go to another place soon." We have now a 

 very good crop of gooseberries. I think the amount of fruit which we lose from the 

 birds is comparatively very small indeed. What I mean to be understood by this is, 

 that for ten months these birds are living very much on what they can get, such as 



