EVIDENCE. FROM AUSTRALIAN PUBLICATIONS. 353 



[George "Wilcox, Lower Mitcham.] 



Suffered very considerably last fruit season from the Sparrows. They first attacked 

 loquats, then apricots and peaches, amongst which they made sad havoc ; then they 

 stripped every cherry, and the grapes were fairly demolished. Ou a trellis, measuring 

 three hundred feet long by ten feet high and ten feet wide, he had a splendid crop of 

 grapes, but had not one presentable bunch. Tried Pitt's wheat, obtained from Fauld- 

 ing & Co., but only killed a few; they soon became too knowing to take the wheat. 

 Believes poisoned water will be the most effective in summer. Has throe times sown 

 peas this season, but they have each time been destroyed by Sparrows. 



[The Adelaide (Australia) Observer, Saturday, July 9, 1887.] 

 THE SPARROW NUISANCE, 



Under the auspices of the Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society, a meeting 

 of persons interested in the destruction of Sparrows was called on Monday afternoon, 

 July 4, in Register Chambers. There was a representative gathering of about twenty 

 of the principal fruit-growers and others affected by the depredations of the ubiqui- 

 tous bird, and the feeling in favor of devising some means for reducing the evil was 

 unanimous. 



Mr. Henry Kelly occupied the chair, and said ho thought much could be done to 

 lessen the evil complained of, although he feared that it would be impossible to 

 eradicate the nuisance altogether, as the Sparrows had increased so much that they 

 had got a complete hold of the country, where they most congregated. He remem- 

 bered that before the rabbits became so alarmingly numerous there were some at 

 Anlaby, near Kapunda, and were regarded as interesting. They began to increase, 

 and became a nuisance, but could then have been destroyed with comparatively 

 little expense. The question of the Sparrows had now become as important and 

 costly to meet. These birds were extending up North, and he had seen thousands at 

 Angaston and other places. They were not confined to the districts in the immedi- 

 ate neighborhood of Adelaide. They were increasing at a most alarming rate, and it 

 was practically impossible to grow fruit now without netting over the trees. 



Mr. Thomas Hardy said he initiated this present movement, and had prepared res- 

 olutions to deal with the question. This was a most important matter, and really 

 affected the whole community. Unless the evil were dealt with energetically and 

 systematically, the wine and fruit growers might as well stop altogether, for it would 

 not pay to go on in a few years' time. At tho time when the rabbit question was af- 

 fecting the couutry the evil had grown to considerable proportions, but if systematic 

 steps to eradicate the rabbits had been taken earlier the trouble would have been 

 stopped. Few people knew the enormous cost of putting down the rabbits. He was 

 told that in one station in New South Wales £20,000 a year had been paid for the de- 

 struction of rabbits, £15,000 by the Government and £5,000 by the owners. Tho 

 Sparrow nuisance would be as great as the rabbit trouble. The great obstacle to 

 anything practical being done lay in the fact that the deputations did not propose 

 any definite scheme as a recommendation to the Government. Tho members of the 

 Government were not expected to know so much of the means to be adopted as the 

 men whose business the Sparrows most injured. But this was not a matter merely 

 affecting a certain clas3, but the welfare of the country. He moved therefore that 

 the Government be requested to bring in a bill for the destruction of Sparrows, to 

 embody the following provisions [see page 355 of this Bulletin]. 



Isolated efforts went for nothing. A man might be surrounded by neighbors who 

 were not injured by the Sparrows, but who had plantations and outhouses in which 

 they bred in myriads, and therefore it was absolutely necessary that people should 

 be authorized to go upon x>rivate property, under due restrictions, and seek for Spar- 

 rows. He knew from his traveling experience in the colonies chat people who under- 



8409— Bull, 1 23 



