144 



RECREATION. 



MOVEMENT AGAINST THE ENGLISH SPARROW 



IN BOSTON. 



Bulletin of the Agricultural Department. 



The English sparrow has attracted un- 

 usual attention during the past year on ac- 

 count of the efforts made in Boston, by 

 the American Society of Bird Restorers, 

 to clear the sparrows from the Common 

 and the Public Garden. A petition was 

 presented to the mayor requesting that 

 steps be taken, under authority of a law 

 passed in 1890, to reduce the number of 

 sparrows, by destroying the nests and 

 eggs during the breeding season, on the 

 plea that the bird had become a public 

 nuisance. On March 15, 5 men, in charge 

 of a foreman, began to tear down the nests 

 in the trees and buildings on the Common, 

 and to close up the holes which had been 

 used as nesting sites, in order to prevent 

 the nests from being replaced. The work 

 proceeded without interruption until April 

 5th, when it was suddenly brought to a 

 close by order of the mayor. During the 3 

 weeks the work was carried on about 

 1,000 sparrow eggs and 4,000 nests were 

 destroyed and 5,000 holes were closed. 

 No birds were killed, but it was the inten- 

 tion of the society to trap the birds during 

 the winter and to destroy them by various 

 other means, which should not involve 

 putting out poison. A careful examina- 

 tion of the Common on May 14th revealed 

 the presence of about 100 nests; on May 

 22d, 152 nests were counted, and it was 

 estimated that less than 450 birds were 

 breeding there. 



The nest destruction aroused a storm of 

 opposition. Numerous protests appeared 

 in the daily papers, and many persons, who 

 perhaps had never before given the mat- 

 ter a thought, suddenly became interested 

 in sparrow extermination, and, as a conse- 

 quence, hundreds of Jetters on the subject 

 were received by the Department. Before 

 the work had been under way a week the 

 bulletin on the "English sparrow" (pub- 

 lished by this Division in 1889 in a large 

 edition, so that a considerable number of 

 copies were still available for distribution) 

 became entirely exhausted, and many re- 

 quests for copies remained unfilled. 



Unfortunately, the experiment was not 

 continued long enough to secure definite 

 results or to test this method of preventing 

 the undue increase of the bird. The move- 

 ment accomplished some good, not only 

 in Boston, but in other places in Massa- 

 chusetts, as well as in other States, by at- 

 tracting public attention to the difficulty 

 of dealing with the sparrow, and showing 

 the extent to which an imported pest may 

 increase under favorable circumstances. 



the spitting of a cat aiways made a dog 

 recoil, determined to learn why. One day 

 he found a kitten in a woodpile, where a 

 dog was barking at it. He took the place 

 of the dog and worried the cat, with his 

 face quite near it. One spit of the kitty 

 told the whole story. "Of all the abomi- 

 nable stenches I ever smelled that was 

 many times the worst, and made me half 

 sick for 24 hours," he said, and he felt sat- 

 isfied with one experiment. I have never 

 tested the truth of his statement that this 

 is one of pussy's defenses, as well as her 

 teeth and claws. 



Another interesting thing he told about 

 toads. The toad, as the majority of people 

 know, catches flies and bugs by thrusting 

 out his tongue, which is covered with a 

 sticky saliva, and thus capturing his prey. 

 My friend says if you put a small wad of 

 tobacco, the size of a fly, on the end of a 

 grass stem, and wave it near Mr. Bufo's 

 nose, he will usually take it in. He is then 

 in the fix of a schoolboy after his first 

 chew, and soon indicates his disturbed in- 

 ternal arrangements by hitching about 

 nervously. When the tobacco has wor- 

 ried him to the point of desperation he 

 puts his little hand down his carpetbag of 

 a mouth and takes out the offending mor- 

 sel. If it cannot be reached by one hand 

 he tries the other. I have seen a toad put 

 on his new suit by swallowing the old one, 

 but I never saw one fish in his stomach 

 for tobacco. 



C. C. Haskins, Chicago. 



OUR FRIEND THE TOAD. 

 A friend of mine, having noticed that 



HOW TO KILL SPARROWS. 



Noticing the article of Carlos L. Smith, 

 in April Recreation, in regard to poison- 

 ing sparrows, I should like to inquire how 

 it can be successfully accomplished. Some 

 time ago I was stopping with an acquaint- 

 ance of mine who attempted to rid himself 

 of the sparrow nuisance. He _ first fed 

 them clean wheat in a convenient place 

 where they could easily get it. At the 

 same time he soaked some of the wheat in 

 a strong solution of arsenic; then drying it, 

 mixed it with the clean, and fed it out to 

 the birds as before. He found to his sur- 

 prise that the sparrows picked out the 

 undoctored kernels and left the poisoned 

 ones behind. 



Was there anything wrong about the 

 method of serving the poison? 



W. Stoesser, Butler, Wis. 



ANSWER. 



I do not understand how the birds could 

 know the difference. They probably de- 

 tected the bitter taste of the arsenic and 

 avoided it. You might try dissolving a lot 

 of arsenic or strychnine, mixing it with 

 corn meal and then feeding it to the spar- 

 rows. — Editor. 



